


Heaven on the Highway

by minbins



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Anal Sex, Come Swallowing, Consensual Sex, DO NOT REPOST MY WORKS I DO NOT CONSENT TO REPOSTING, Driver Johnny, Hitchhiker Mark, Johnny is a Sweetheart, Like so much, M/M, Open Ending (To Come), Oral Sex, Roadtrip-Esque, age gap, but there is A LOT of it, handjobs, not just porn, so much flustered mark, tentative chapter estimate, virgin mark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:13:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24885904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minbins/pseuds/minbins
Summary: “Wouldn’t you rather it be you, Johnny?” He reaches under his own shirt, lets one hand rest over Johnny's on his waist. “You know my name, I know yours. Can’t that be enough?”
Relationships: Mark Lee/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Comments: 142
Kudos: 565





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is going to get very sexually explicit, as anyone familiar with my AO3 will well know. Please click away if that isn't for you. If it is, then I hope you enjoy my first venture into NCT fic! I've loved them for so long, so it feels good to join the tag.

_Sometimes, just sometimes, you have an experience you know you’ll remember forever._

* * *

When they meet, it’s raining. Mark is holding his jacket futilely above his head as he tries to flag down a merciful passer-by. The jacket is denim, and long soaked through. Finally, someone pulls over, and Mark hurries forwards as the driver rolls down their window. It’s a man— an incredibly hot man, but Mark pays that no heed. He just wants to get out of the rain, and if anything it’s reassuring that he’s so gorgeous. Mark doubts he’ll try anything.

“Where are you going?” The man asks, eyes taking in the dejectedly sodden state of Mark.

“Anywhere.” Mark replies. He means it.

The man seems to contemplate, then visibly relents, letting out a heavy sigh that floods Mark with relief. “Get in.”

Mark smiles gratefully, finally escaping the rain as he clambers with little grace into the passenger side seat. He’s aching from walking down the side of the highway for hours, and his legs almost buckle before he can even sit down. The man catches him by the elbow and doesn’t let go until he’s fully in his seat.

“You okay, kid?” he asks. Probably, or so Mark figures, he’s already regretting allowing the bedraggled teen into his truck.

“I’m not a kid,” Mark retorts defiantly, taking off his glasses for a second to wipe off the sudden condensation, “I’m almost twenty.”

“How almost?”

“In six months.” He reluctantly admits.

“So you’re nineteen-and-a-half,” the man says, with a smile that makes Mark feel like he’s definitely being teased right now. “At least I won’t have to worry about a kidnapping charge for picking you up.” He laughs, pulling back onto the road. “What’s your name, then, not-kid who’s going anywhere?”

“Mark. Mark Lee,” he replies, watching the man as he drives. It’s sunset, now, so his handsome features are lit up by the soft glow of the dying sky. “And almost twenty sounds better— halfway rounds up, doesn’t it?”

“Aren’t you smart, Mark Lee?” Mark watches the slight tilt to the man’s lips. He’s definitely teasing him. “Do you really have no destination in mind?”

“Just away from here,” Mark tells him, gesturing around him even though the man’s eyes are on the road. “Anywhere, as long as it’s away.”

“I can respect that— small town, huh?”

There’s a level of understanding in the man’s tone, and Mark wonders what he’s run from. “Yeah,” He confirms. “I just want something new.”

“Do you have a plan?” he asks, and for once Mark doesn’t feel interrogated by a question he’s been asked all of his life. It’s not accusatory, or overly expectant. Somehow, Mark feels freer than ever.

“No.” It’s the first time he’s been honest on said topic. “I’ve been saving for over three years, though- it’s enough to make a start, wherever I end up.”

The man nods. He seems impressed, and Mark fights the unprecedented urge to preen. Or perhaps he’s planning on robbing Mark and leaving him high and dry at the side of the road. It really wasn’t a smart move, hinting at having that much cash on him, but- “That’s more than I had.” Mark had been right in guessing the theme of his past. For some reason, he trusts him.

They’re silent for a while, as the sun dips below the treetops. “What’s your name?” Mark asks at last, bolder in the darkness.

“Johnny,” The man replies. _Johnny._ He looks like a Johnny. Mark can’t see him clearly now, but he stared more than enough earlier. Leather jacket, dark hair, and a shirt dipping more than far enough for Mark’s gaze to linger on his collarbones. He doesn’t think he’d mind if Johnny _did_ try something. It’s hardly like him to think so, but Mark supposes he’s leaving his old self behind, anyway.

Mark wonders if Johnny can tell where his thoughts have ventured.

“I’m going right to the other side of the country for work,” Johnny tells him. “If you want ‘away’, it’ll be about as far as you can get without emigrating.”

“You’d take me?” A small, childish part of Mark’s mind laughs at the unintentional innuendo.

“Why not?” Johnny muses, flicking the indicator as they turn onto yet another featureless road. “Can you drive?”

“No, sorry,” Mark apologises, “I never had time to learn.”

“That’s no worry,” Johnny brushes off his words, “I don’t really want to end up there too fast, anyway. And besides— you’ll make it more interesting than just me and the radio.”

Mark hopes so, certainly. He has little experience in holding conversation with people he’s attracted to, though, so he can’t guarantee it.

* * *

It’s surprisingly easy to talk to Johnny, Mark learns over the next few hours. He’s twenty-seven, but there’s no age-imposed barrier blocking the flow of their conversation. Kindred souls, or so it seems. Producer by profession, he’s finally managed to get a well-known feature for one of his songs. Problem is, he has to come all the way to _them._

“I don’t mind it, really,” Johnny says, throwing back a gulp of a vile-smelling energy drink. Mark fights the urge to wrinkle his nose. “Gives me a break from the constant company of my best friends, as much as I love the bastards.”

“Do you work with them, then?”

Johnny smiles, the hint of fondness in his exasperation belying a long-lived friendship. “I live with them. Love them to bits, but by fuck are they a lot, sometimes.”

“It’s nice that you have them, though— I’m not leaving anyone behind.” Mark admits. They’re driving under a long strip of streetlights, so Mark can see his face as he waits for a look of judgement which never comes. Nor does the pity he was expecting.

“That’ll change when you’re somewhere you want to be,” Johnny reassures him instead. “You’re easy to talk to— making friends shouldn’t be too hard.”

“Oh, you think so?” Mark laughs awkwardly, suddenly shy. Johnny finds him easy to talk to. _Him._ “I thought it was just me.”

A sign comes up for a motel, and Johnny sighs after looking at the clock. “We should probably stop, huh? You need a shower, anyway.”

Mark tries to subtly sniff himself. _Does he really smell that bad?_ Not surreptitious enough, it seems, as Johnny laughs lightly. “You’re fine, Mark— I just mean so you don’t catch a cold.”

“Oh.” Mark is both audibly and visibly embarrassed, voice cracking as he resorts to hiding his face in the sweater paws Johnny's too-big hoodie gives him. He’d lent it to him earlier, pulling it from the back seat- it had been easier than stopping the car entirely to grab Mark’s bag from under the seats where it had fallen. “I agree that we should stop, though— don’t want you falling asleep at the wheel.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Johnny says with far too serious a tone for Mark’s liking. He resolves to keep a careful eye on the driver’s consciousness. It’s only _partly_ because he wants an excuse to stare at him more.

They pull into the parking lot, and Mark’s treated to the sight of Johnny fully illuminated as he opens his door and the car automatically floods with light. He’s wearier-looking than earlier, but still beautiful. Mark is a little alarmed by just how attractive he finds him, when he’s going to be in such close confinement with the other man for a full week or so. Still, he follows him into the motel after grabbing his bag from the back seat. It had taken a second to do so, as it’d gotten quite firmly wedged during the journey. He’s half a mind to strap it in when they leave.

Once inside, they split a twin room, Mark handing his half of the money over to the semi-conscious receptionist before Johnny. His haste is borne of a look in Johnny's eyes that makes Mark think that he may well pay for them both. He seems the sort, from what Mark can already tell of his character. A small, wry, smile in Mark’s direction afterwards mostly confirms said suspicion. Sure, there are worse things than a hot stranger paying for your shared hotel room, but Mark hates to feel indebted. He probably looks dodgy as hell to the receptionist, having paid from a wad of fifties pulled loose from his bag. This isn’t the kind of place to judge people, though. It’s hardly five-star luxury. 

Mark shrieks when they’re welcomed to their room by a cockroach scuttling across the shabbily carpeted floor. Johnny kicks it out of the still-open door and into the hallway, shutting the door before it can return. Hopefully, it’s the only one. 

“Don’t like those, huh?” Johnny asks. He’s teasing, yet again.

“They’re nasty, man— stop judging me!” Mark pouts.

“Don’t worry, Mark,” Johnny reassures, albeit still in that same amused sort of tone, “It was very cute.”

Mark doesn’t know how to react to that. He hasn’t been called _cute_ since he was about five, and it definitely hadn’t felt like this. It’s like he’s been set alight, and he fights back the blush flooding into his cheeks and the tips of his ears. “Dude, stopppp,” he whines, because his brain has just shut down a little and he’s unsure about what else to say. 

Johnny definitely notices Mark’s reaction, but he doesn’t comment on it past a raised eyebrow that somehow makes it worse. In an effort to distract himself, Mark turns his back to Johnny as he plonks his bag down on one of the beds. They’re so close that he barely has room to edge between them and put his glasses case on their shared nightstand. 

Mark doesn’t register Johnny starting to strip until he turns to find that he’s already in his boxers. He allows himself a shocked, gay second before screwing his eyes shut and turning back around to the sound of Johnny softly laughing. Johnny is unfairly ripped, and while Mark had noticed the tail-end of a tattoo on his upper sleeve when he took his jacket off, it hadn’t prepared him for seeing one that trails down Johnny's entire side. The towels folded at the ends of their beds are clean, though so worn that there’s even a hole about to come through in one of Mark’s. He stares at them until he hears Johnny shut the door to their bathroom. When he allows himself to turn back around, he sees the pile on Johnny's bed gone. The shower starts up seconds later, and Mark flops onto his bed, laying there listening to the running water.

He’s finally escaped the cycle of misery he’d grown up in. And while he’s never been quite this scared, he really couldn’t be more thrilled about it.

His nervous happiness is replaced by another feeling entirely when Johnny emerges from the ensuite with a towel around his waist, the other slung around his shoulders. His hair is plastered to his forehead messily, and he looks like he’s just stepped straight out of a fashion spread. A fashion spread with questionable taste in towels to advertise, sure, but Johnny manages to carry it off. Mark’s eyes can’t help but catch on the v-line dipping beneath the towel for one selfish moment, and he realises it’s a _moment too long_ when he tears his eyes away and meets Johnny's amused expression. He doesn’t call him out on it, and Mark is grateful for such small mercies. “Shower’s free,” Johnny says instead, and Mark hurries to gather up his towels and the small bag of toiletries he’s brought with him. 

Without a word to Johnny, for he’s pretty sure he’d stammer right now if he tried, Mark retreats to the bathroom. Though Johnny had reassured him that he didn’t smell, he spends longer than usual ensuring that he definitely doesn’t now that the thought of it’s there. 

Mark steps out in the same state as Johnny had, though he’s glad to find Johnny now wearing a loose pair of grey sweatpants. Considerably _less_ lucky for Mark is the fact that he appears to harbour absolutely no intention of putting a shirt on. Mark might be imagining it — Mark _has_ to be imagining it— but for a tense few seconds, Johnny's eyes seem to linger on the slight curve of Mark’s exposed waist before he consciously averts his gaze. Mark silently suffers at the sight of Johnny's broad back as he turns for Mark to change.

He feels very small compared to Johnny, especially in his threadbare, baggy t-shirt and shorts. It’s obviously in part a height thing, but it’s also the fact that Johnny is so damn wide-shouldered and looks so mature. Mark’s attraction to him seems more harmless by the minute, therefore, given how little he believes it will be reciprocated. 

Once Mark is in bed too, Johnny flicks off the reading light beside them. “Try and get some sleep,” he says, tossing and turning a little until he finds a position he deems comfortable enough. “Wake me up if I’m not awake in time for the no-doubt _delicious_ breakfast.”

They share a quiet laugh at that. 

“Will do,” Mark replies. The blinds are cheap, and the streetlight outside filters through a little, casting faint patterns over them both. Mark watches Johnny for a while then, a sliver of light casting shadows on his handsome face. His eyes are shut, but he’s still clearly awake. “Goodnight, Johnny,” Mark says, once he’s made himself stop staring. At once, he wonders if that was weird to say. He lays down gingerly against the greying pillow, which at least _smells_ clean, and tries not to think about how many people have done so before him. 

“Goodnight, cutie,” Johnny teases. Mark thinks he’s teasing, at least, for he has no reason to say that otherwise. It must be in reference to him screaming earlier, or something. Surely.

He drifts into a fitful sleep. 

* * *

Breakfast is toast _just_ on the verge of stale with too-sweet spread. Johnny chugs down three of the bitter coffees, and Mark suffers through just the one before they head out. Strapping himself in, he looks at the clock blinking on the dashboard. _10:19._ Johnny seems in little hurry to speed through their journey, and Mark is glad of the delay before he’s left alone in some unfamiliar city. 

“Mind if I put music on?” Johnny asks, and Mark shrugs noncommittally.

“Your car, man,” he points out.

“True,” Johnny admits, starting up the car and pulling out of their spot. “Can you dig something out for me? I don’t mind what.”

Mark picks out one at random, a tape with a blank case. It looks like it hasn't always been that way— more that it’s been in the car so long that the cover has worn away. When he puts it in, it turns out to be _Queen’s Greatest Hits._ Johnny laughs. “What?” Mark asks.

“Oh, nothing,” he replies, “it just seems like I’m always playing that one.”

They’re quiet for a little while, and Mark stares out of the window. When he looks back at Johnny, he’s headbanging to _Another One Bites The Dust,_ and Mark would be worried if the road they’re on wasn’t so empty. There isn’t a single other car in sight, so reckless driving is a tad more permissible. Johnny's hair falls in his face, and Mark’s heart stutters in his chest at the sight of him pushing it back. He’s caught staring again, and quickly averts his eyes, listening to Johnny singing along. His voice is unfairly well suited to Queen. 

Johnny takes a break from singing, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel to the beat, instead. “Are you leaving a girl behind?” he asks, conversationally. Mark laughs at the thought. “What,” Johnny hums, though it seems like he already knows, “Not your style?”

“Not quite,” Mark replies. “Never really been into girls.”

“Into the MILFs, then? Prefer older women, d’ya, Markie?” Johnny seems to be half teasing and half genuinely checking that he’s reading Mark right. 

“More so older _men,”_ Mark counters, hoping that he’s not misreading the situation himself, hoping that Johnny isn’t about to choke him and dump his body in a ditch somewhere. He wouldn’t be entirely opposed to the choking minus the murder part, if he’s honest, but that’s something for his brain to die over another time. Mark doesn’t particularly have an age preference either, but part of him screams that if he’s coming out to Johnny he might as well express that he’s comfortable with an age gap. Not that Johnny would want him either way, but there’s no harm in putting it out there. _Not unless Johnny kills him, of course, but Mark is rather hoping that he won’t._

He doesn’t, and it’s as much of a relief as would be expected. Johnny chances a look over at Mark, eyes flitting briefly away from the road and back again. “Don’t worry, Mark,” he reassures. “I’d be one hell of a hypocritical homophobe.”

“You, uh,” Mark’s tongue flounders around the words as he tries to speak. “You like other men, too?”

“I like anyone I want to,” Johnny replies. “Never been picky about what’s between their thighs.”

Mark’s own thighs tingle a little at the intrusive thought of Johnny between them, parting them and spreading Mark open. _No. Bad brain, awful thoughts._ He bites down on his lip hard, hoping that the sharp pain will distract him from the way his dick twitches a little (more than a little) in his jeans. “Cool.” Mark wants to jump out of the passenger side window and let the wilderness take him. _‘Cool’,_ yeah, neat response, Mark. He might as well tape _‘I’m an inexperienced loser’_ to his damn forehead.

“Leaving a _guy_ behind, then?” 

“No, there isn’t anyone,” Mark tells him. There’s never been anyone, actually, but that’s an embarrassing truth to say out loud. With how Mark blushes at him shirtless, Johnny can probably infer it, anyway. 

“I’m surprised,” Johnny says instead, and the tingling returns at the casualness of the statement. “You’re very pretty to not be letting anyone go.”

“I-” Mark’s voice comes out choked. Even with how matter-of-fact Johnny had sounded, it’s still the closest thing to flirting that he’s ever experienced. “You think I’m _pretty,_ dude? What?”

“Well, you are. Pretty, handsome, whatever way you wanna phrase it…” Johnny trails off, brow creasing a little. Somehow, he makes even worry attractive. “Sorry, was that weird of me to say? I was just trying to reassure you.”

“No!” Mark near-shouts, because Johnny calling Mark pretty is perhaps the best moment of his wretched life so far. The title had been held until this by the sight of Johnny after the shower last night, and before that by the distinctly less interesting memory of a class trip to the city, where he’d first started to imagine escaping. “No, man,” he repeats, softer. He feels almost faint from the headiness of being complimented by Johnny. “It isn’t weird at all.”

* * *

Johnny still seems worried that he’s made Mark uncomfortable, and pays for his lunch at the roadside diner they happen upon on one of the busier roads. The booth they have to cram into is tiny, and Mark tries not to hyperfixate on the face that their thighs are brushing together. He tries, but he fails, breath coming a little heavier as he pointedly stares at his milkshake. “You didn’t have to pay for me, dude,” he says, breaking the silence. There’s a thank you in there somewhere, unsaid. It hadn’t been quiet, not really— there’s 50s music playing in the background, but between them there had been nothing.

“I wanted to,” Johnny replies, “You’ve been kinda off since I called you pretty. I really didn’t mean to freak you out.”

“You didn’t, man,” Mark tells him, blushing as he realises he’s going to have to embarrass himself to clear things up. “It’s just that nobody’s ever complimented me like that before, y’know? Let alone someone who looks like you do…” he trails off, worrying his lower lip between his teeth nervously. “It just surprised me-” Mark’s voice almost fades out, now, “-but not in a bad way.”

“Oh.” Now, Mark is worried _he’s_ the one who’s weirding _Johnny_ out, but when he forces himself to look at him it doesn’t seem it. Instead, Johnny is- Well, Mark can’t really interpret his expression. Thoughtful is what comes closest. “That’s good, then. I promise, you really are deserving of being called pretty.”

Mark flushes deeper. This time, however, Johnny doesn’t seem guilty— instead, he looks at him for a little too long to be considered normal, before catching himself and hurriedly looking away. Mark wonders what that means, but doesn’t let himself dwell on it for too long, focusing on his food instead. It’s enough for him that Johnny thinks he’s pretty. He can’t expect anything more than that, not from someone who has already shown him such kindness. Not from someone who isn’t just pretty, but far beyond that. 

Johnny’s the most attractive person Mark has _ever seen,_ and he’s counting movie stars in that equation. _Goodbye, childhood crush on Leonardo DiCaprio._ Mark’s moved on to someone even better, though likely with even less of a chance at reciprocation. 

Still, when Mark turns his attention back to his milkshake, he sees Johnny out of the corner of his eye, looking at him like he can’t help but do so. Mark shivers. He attributes it to the milkshake when Johnny checks that he’s okay. Johnny's thigh is practically burning against his own, and he grows more aware of it by the second. Mark, an awkward virgin who hasn’t had the chance to get off in a couple of weeks, could soon have a problem if he doesn’t get out of here. 

But Johnny fusses over him, and picks up his jacket from where it rests on his lap. Mark tenses up. He’s aware of what’s about to happen but powerless to prevent it, frozen in place and, if he’s honest, unwilling to try and stop him. 

“Here,” Johnny says, and drapes his jacket around Mark’s shoulders. And, sure, Mark has already worn Johnny's clothes— he’d been wearing his hoodie within half an hour of meeting him. But it still makes his brain shut down. Mark feels so _small,_ the way he’s drowning in the jacket only exacerbating the fact that Johnny’s practically twice his size. He can smell Johnny all around him, and he wants to sink right into it. Johnny is just so stupidly broad shouldered, stupidly attractive and Mark _really_ needs to not be touching him right now, or he’ll definitely be in hot water that he doesn’t want to have to explain. 

“Uh, haha, t-thank you, bro,” he stammers, face burning and so, _so_ obvious. He stares at Johnny’s now-exposed arms, and barely resists the urge to _reach out and touch._ “Should we get going, then, dude?” 

Johnny nods, albeit semi-reluctantly for some reason, and slides out of the booth. Something in Mark aches at the loss of closeness, loving how Johnny had felt pressed against him. It’s awful, and he shouldn’t be feeling it, not when he’ll never see him again once they reach the city. 

It doesn’t need to be forever, though.

The thought is invasive, entirely unwelcome and... True. Mark breathes in Johnny's cologne, rich and heady. It’s not nearly enough to realistically make him dizzy, Johnny not one of those assholes that bathes in the stuff, but his head swims nonetheless. For a split second, he lets himself imagine it, Johnny between his thighs, Johnny all around him as he pushes Mark down, Johnny-

“Mark, you coming?” Johnny asks, looking back and seeing Mark still sitting at the booth. Hopefully he doesn’t notice how much he’s shaking.

Mark _wishes_ that he was coming, because of course that’s where his mind goes from Johnny’s words, and knows it would take a few minutes tops if he could escape to the bathroom before they left. With Johnny acting like this, his imagination could definitely fill in the gaps between fantasy and reality, conjuring up a scene that would easily bring him over the edge. Instead, cruel to himself beyond belief, he nods, pushing the unwanted thoughts down, _but not quite away._ “Yeah, man!” he replies, peppier than he feels. “On my way, bro.”

Johnny smiles, and something _twists_ in Mark’s gut. He’s never wanted anything or anything quite this much. His fingers curl around the sleeves of Johnny's leather jacket, and he walks over to join him at the door. When Johnny holds it open for him, Mark shouldn’t like it the way he does. He shouldn’t. “Suits you,” Johnny remarks offhandedly. It’s very unhelpful to Mark as he tries to talk himself down from popping a boner in a diner in the middle of nowhere, but it’s also _incredible._

Johnny thinks that Mark looks good in his clothes. Mark can’t quite believe it. 

“Oh,” Mark says, all powers of speech momentarily stolen away as Johnny slings an arm around his shoulders while they walk back to the car.

“You really are just _adorable,_ Mark,” Johnny says, so open and honest that Mark can hardly imagine ever being that level of effortlessly confident. The offhanded comment doesn’t seem to mean much to Johnny, but it means everything to Mark. Nobody has ever treated him like this before. It’s a boost to his confidence that unfortunately serves as an equal boost to the growing level of unwelcome thoughts about this relative stranger. 

If he thinks Mark’s cute, thinks he’s pretty, then maybe he thinks _more,_ thinks the way Mark does about him. Perhaps Mark is being naive, but the way Johnny's eyes linger feels a little like that. It’s a daunting concept that Mark can’t quite believe, let alone act on. Nothing will come of it.

_Right?_

“Markie, you’re zoning out on me again,” Johnny teases, laughing lightly from the driver’s seat as Mark realises he hasn’t got in the car himself yet, too lost in thoughts of what can’t be.

* * *

Nobody gets anywhere in life without taking chances to get what they want. He reminds himself of this as he makes a probably stupid decision, but one he can’t keep himself from. It’s better to be prepared in case anything happens than miss the opportunity, Mark reasons. Not that anything _will_ happen, but-

“I’ll be out in a second!” Mark calls behind him, heading back into the gas station. Under the pretense of having forgotten to buy a drink while they were just in there together, Mark returns alone. Ducking into the hygiene section, his hands tremble a little as he grabs a pack of condoms and a couple of the tiny travel-size bottles of lube next to them. Remembering at the last minute what he’d supposedly returned for, he grabs a bottle of water too, and heads to the counter.

The cashier, a man in his fifties with an impressive moustache and a judgmental look in his eye, thankfully doesn’t comment on Mark’s purchases. “Will that be all, son?” he says, because Mark has the kind of small wholesome face that makes cashiers call him _son,_ and Mark nods shyly. He knows he’s blushing again, but pushes past it with only a normal amount of nervous laughter. He pays in cash, and hurries outside after stuffing everything into his backpack.

Johnny has been waiting with the engine running, and pulls out of the parking lot once Mark is back in the car. “Find everything okay?” he asks, raising an eyebrow when Mark chokes on air at the innocent question.

“Y-Yeah.”

“There’s really no need to be so nervous around me, Mark,” Johnny assures him. “I don’t bite unless I’m asked to, promise.”

Mark can’t quite tell if it’s flirting or just a turn of phrase, but the knot in his stomach doesn’t care either way. Johnny’s confidence screams experience, and it’s so damn attractive in contrast to Mark’s lack thereof. “I’m not nervous,” he lies. “I’m just, you know, not used to this.”

Johnny hums in understanding. “I get it, trust me,” he says, one hand leaving the steering wheel to squeeze Mark’s thigh reassuringly. Mark makes a high-pitched squeaking sound, like tires skidding, and Johnny pulls his hand away immediately. “Sorry, automatic,” he apologises frantically, “I wasn’t thinking— it won’t happen again. Cross my heart.”

“No!” Mark says, so hurried that he sounds desperate. He _is_ desperate, admittedly, but he doesn’t want Johnny to know that. “I mean, I don’t mind, man, you can if you want to, I don’t _not_ like it, dude, I-”

“Easy there,” Johnny cuts him off. “No need to get worked up, cutie. Message received.”

As if to prove his words, Johnny's hand moves back to Mark’s thigh. It takes every last morsel of self control that Mark possesses to stop himself tensing up at the contact, knowing that might make Johnny get the wrong idea again. He relaxes into it, leaning back in his seat in a feigned display of ease, and Johnny's hand stays there for a minute or so, moving only when he needs to change gears. 

He can drive easily with one hand, and Mark hates the bare-minimum attraction he gets from it. Mark misses his touch as soon as it passes. He’d been on the verge of aching. Something about Johnny sets Mark alight, his body a burning sky at sunset, restraint dipping into obscurity. 

Apparently, Johnny makes Mark poetic, too.

“What about you?” Mark blurts out, his brain-to-mouth filter entirely forgetting to include context.

“What, do I like people touching my thighs?” Johnny says, sounding bemused. “Yeah, I guess?...”

“No, I mean, uh, m-missing,” Mark flails. Pointedly, he does not think about Johnny’s thighs at all. He just wants to know, _needs_ to know if there’s any sort of chance, here. “Like you asked me— is there anyone missing you right now?”

“Oh.” It’s there again, that thoughtful tone that Mark can’t quite decipher. “No, there isn’t anyone at the moment.”

Mark braves it. “You’re very pretty to not be leaving anyone waiting.”

“Look at you,” Johnny tuts, smiling despite himself. He sounds almost proud. “Stealing my line.”

“You are pretty, though, dude,” Mark argues, chest closing up but determined to at least express _some_ interest. 

“Bet you say that to all the older men driving you across the country,” Johnny teases, flicking on the indicator. They turn onto another long stretch of road, barely a car in sight. It seems an awfully inefficient route, taking all the backroads like this, but Mark isn’t going to complain about something that gives him longer with Johnny, longer before he’s alone.

“Maybe,” Mark teases in return, batting his lashes overdramatically when Johnny looks his way. He doesn’t know what compels him, but Johnny’s eyes widen for a moment and Mark counts it as a resounding success. “You’re my favourite, though.”

“With so much competition?!” Johnny gasps, clutching at his chest. “I’m honoured.”

“Yeah, man,” Mark replies, voice as dramatic as Johnny’s. “Out of _all_ the older men driving me across the country, you are indeed my favourite of the lot.”

“I’d like to thank the academy-” Johnny starts to say, but starts laughing so hard that he can’t even finish his faux-speech. Johnny is beautiful when he’s laughing, or so Mark thinks. He feels lucky to be able to witness someone so perfect, caught in their temporary reality. Finally, Johnny catches his breath. “You’re something else, Mark.”

Mark feels like a fool for it, but his heart skips a beat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope you enjoyed this!! I'm 13k into it, but I'm not letting myself post the next part until I've hit 15k in the doc-- motivation and all, etc etc. Pls excuse the title, I had to at least _reference_ it with this subject matter, c'mon.
> 
>  _Speaking of motivation!!_ I've been writing this for months, have spent hours on it etc. Please leave me a comment if you can!! They really do make a world of difference to us on here. Silent readers can really take a toll if we're just ~Writing For A Void~ (curiouscat is also a valid option if you don't feel comfortable commenting on fic publically) <3 Kudos are lovely too :')
> 
> [twt](https://twitter.com/scbaes)
> 
> [cc](https://curiouscat.qa/scbaes)
> 
> \- V xxx


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I could make it enough._

“Do you do this often?” Mark asks. The tape has been quiet for a while, and so have they. Silence can be nice for some time, but as Mark will be surrounded by silence soon enough when they reach their final destination, he doesn’t much care for it at present.

“Drive pretty strangers across the country?” Johnny clarifies. There he goes again, calling Mark pretty. He feels himself flush pink, shifting a little in his seat. Johnny doesn’t apologise for the compliment this time, knowing Mark wants it, though likely unaware as to what extent. “No.” _Mark had hoped so. It’s nice to feel special to Johnny, even a little._ “You’d be the first. And the cutest.”

“First pretty one, or first, period?” Mark lets his tone shift to teasing, somewhat. Testing the waters. Then, softer, “You honestly think I’m pretty, man? You’re not just messing with me, right?”

“Should I buy you a mirror, Mark?” Johnny replies, and then pauses. His breath catches a little in his throat, ringing in the relative silence, and when he speaks again it’s lighter. It’s the manner of someone deliberately employing a joking tone, as to give themselves an out if it’s taken in the wrong way. “... Anyone would think you were flirting with me, the questions you’re asking.”

Mark’s heart is pounding, and he has to hold onto his own arms to stop them from flailing, but he doesn’t back down. “And if I was?” He matches Johnny's airy guise. “Hypothetically, of course.” _Has he been imagining it, the way Johnny's eyes linger on him?_

“Hypothetically,” Johnny stresses the word in a way that tells Mark that he _must_ have caught on, “I’d remind you that I’m twenty-seven.”

“And _hypothetically,_ I’d remind you that I’m almost twenty, and that I’m an _adult,_ dude.”

“What about real life?” Johnny asks. The light tone is heavier now, somehow charged. “What would you say, then?”

Mark trembles. He wonders if it’s visible in Johnny's peripheral vision as he stares steadfastly at the open road ahead of them. “Well, I _am_ an adult,” Mark says, “Hypothetical or otherwise.” It feels dangerous, the way he’s acting, but Mark wants to live. To _truly_ live, free of inhibition, and now is his first, exciting chance at it. 

_It doesn’t need to be forever._

“Next one isn’t for a while, I don’t think,” Johnny says. Mark looks to where he’s pointing, and sees a sign advertising a motel reasonably nearby. It won’t take them too long to reach. Whether deliberate on Johnny's part or mere coincidence, it moves them away from the way their conversation has been heading. “Wanna stop at that one, or keep driving for a bit longer?”

“It’s late,” Mark says, and definitely not because he wants to draw their journey out, adding a couple hours onto their start tomorrow. Not at all. 9:55 counts as late. “I’m good to stop soon, if you are?”

“Sure,” Johnny easily agrees. As the car pauses at a turning, he looks over at Mark for a brief moment, something unfathomable in his eyes. Whatever it is, it makes Mark’s cock twitch. “I could do with a break from driving, anyway.”

* * *

They’re all checked in, and Mark dumps his bag at the foot of his bed, sitting down and rolling his neck until it cracks. Twisting to the side both ways, he clicks the tension out of his back. A day spent mostly in the car doesn’t do wonders for the posture. Turned to the right, his t-shirt rides up, and when he looks over at Johnny he sees his eyes caught on the exposed strip of skin. Slowly, Mark turns back to face him, watching Johnny until he realises _he’s_ being watched, too. He blushes slightly, looking like he wants to apologise for staring. Something about affecting Johnny like that sets something _burning_ in Mark, and he doesn’t know quite what to do about it. 

“Mind if I shower first, man?” Mark speaks, but the tension isn’t broken. He shrugs Johnny's jacket off, and it falls to the bed behind him. Johnny keeps looking at Mark, and Mark stares right back. He doesn’t know what’s come over him, and he knows the confidence won’t last, but he’ll ride the wave until it’s dashed against the shore.

“Sure.” Mark is quite sure he isn’t imagining how strained Johnny's voice sounds. Bolder still, Mark curls his hands around the bottom of his t-shirt. Johnny's breath hitches, and Mark pulls it over his head- 

Or at least he _tries_ to— his glasses get caught for a moment, and the fumble makes it a whole lot more awkward than sexy. Once the t-shirt is finally off, the wave of confidence is thoroughly dashed, seeping into the metaphorical sand. Mark silently wills the ground to open up and swallow him. Johnny is still watching him, but with the sort of smile that shows he thinks Mark’s flailing is cute. Mark doesn’t want to be _cute_ right now, he wants Johnny to-

Well, Mark doesn’t know where to start on the long list of things he wants Johnny to do to him, really. “Dude, stop laughiiiing!” he whines, jutting his lower lip out and pouting dramatically, “You’re _mean.”_ Johnny isn’t full on laughing, to be fair, but his wide smile is laughter enough. 

“You’re so cute,” Johnny replies, and Mark’s next protest dies a sudden and horrible death before it can leave his lips. “Want me to tell you an embarrassing story to make you feel better, Markie?”

_Mark-ie._ Johnny's voice lilts like song, and Mark can feel his own blush. “Yes,” he still leaps at the opportunity to pass the embarrassment. “You can’t stay cool to me forever, bro.”

“You think I’m cool?”

“Johnny, you dress like a rocker groupie’s wet dream,” Mark replies, and the surge of confidence is smaller this time, but there nonetheless. It’s enough, and he pushes on. “Plus, you’re a _producer,_ dude.”

“You think producers are hot?”

“Yeah, man, in a ‘that’s-a-really-cool-job’ kinda way.”

“So you think _I’m-”_

“And what about it?” Mark retorts. Before he can run out of steam, or fall prey to the way his throat wants to close up from the look in Johnny's eyes, he speaks again. “Embarrassing story— pay up.”

Johnny seems to think for a moment, sifting through memories to pick something good. “Totally walked in on my friend Ten and his boyfriend going at it a few days ago, if that counts?”

Mark shakes his head. “Gimme something better.”

“It was a _very_ compromising position-”

“Dude-”

“I didn’t even know Kun could _bend_ like that, that’s way more Ten’s forte-”

“No, dig _deeper,_ dude, c’mon.” Mark sounds almost petulant, and resolves to push that out of his tone. He doesn’t want to seem anywhere near childish to Johnny.

“Hmm…” Johnny pauses, and then goes _bright_ red as his mind latches onto something likely buried deep in his subconscious.

“I want that one,” Mark says. Demands.

Rolling his eyes, Johnny indulges him nonetheless. “Okay, so I was twenty-one, and told a guy I was into that I could juggle, and I _could not_ juggle, and..” Johnny keeps speaking, but Mark zones out a little (a lot) at the unhindered opportunity to stare unabashedly at Johnny's pretty lips. They’re so full, Mark can’t help but wonder how they’d feel- “... and _that’s_ how I ended up getting fished out of the canal by a ninety-year old man named Jeffrey.”

Wait. 

Mark had _definitely_ missed something major in the middle there, but he’s too embarrassed to admit he’d been too distracted looking at Johnny's lips to listen to him. “Oh my God,” he says instead, laughing, “That’s crazy, man. So wild, totally.” 

Johnny seems to buy it. “We’re even now, then?”

“Yeah— for now, at least,” Mark replies. “I’m sure I’ll manage to tip the scales soon enough when it comes to embarrassing myself.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Johnny replies.

“Hey!” Mark protests, albeit weakly. 

He still needs that shower. Avoiding Johnny's eyes, Mark pulls off his jeans, leaving his boxer-briefs on. _Those_ can come off in the bathroom. Mark’s thighs pool against the bed a little, and he sees Johnny looking at them. He wants Johnny _between_ them, but stops that thought in its tracks before he gets a problem that would be very visible through a single layer of thin grey cotton. He’s already outlined enough, cheap fabric entirely unforgiving in situations like these. _Not that Mark has ever been in a situation like this before._ Fumbling and almost dropping it, Mark picks up his towel and hurries through to the bathroom. 

He brings his backpack with him. 

* * *

The shower is lukewarm, but it feels burning.

Mark hasn’t done this in a while, hasn’t had a _chance_ to. what with everything that had been going down before he escaped. It had been a mess, and not one he particularly wishes his thoughts to return to when he’s three fingers deep in his ass. Eyes closed, he lets the water run over his face in a stream just short of hot, yet enough that he can be somewhat soothed. He angles his wrist _just so,_ and finds what he’d been trying to brush against, rubbing over it and biting his lip to stifle the moan that threatens to bubble free. It would echo in the small room, and Johnny would know exactly what Mark had been getting up to. 

Perhaps he already does. Mark’s been in here a while— he probably should have just jacked off, but he wants to be full. It’s not nearly enough, still. Even though he’s a virgin, Mark is well aware of his size kink. The more fingers he gets up his ass, the harder he comes; it’s not rocket science to draw conclusions from that. 

His hand keeps moving, slow pumps in and out of himself as the other fists his cock. It’s a rather awkward angle, but the pleasure outweighs discomfort. Letting his mind drift, Mark imagines Johnny hearing him and liking it, enough that he has a hand down the front of his boxers as he listens to Mark’s stifled whimpers. Mark clenches around his own fingers at the thought. Embarrassingly, he comes all over the shower walls just from _imagining_ Johnny wanting him. 

_How could Mark cope with it if he actually does?_

And yet, he’s beginning to think that Johnny _does_ want him, honestly. The signs are there. It all depends on whether Mark is brave enough to take the first step, because he knows Johnny won’t be the one to do so. Their dynamic is too imbalanced for that. Johnny is older, stronger, worldier. Mark is gangly, on the precipice of his twenties and eager to a fault. 

His hand is cramping something awful, and he rolls his wrist with a wince. Aching joints shouldn’t be such a problem at his age, really. Mark blames it on a lifetime of tension. 

He aims the showerhead at the wall to clean off the evidence of his release, and stands there until it’s washed away. Only then does he rinse his hair and step out of the shower, letting his towel hang low on his hips — deliberate, this time — as he steps back into their shared room. Johnny watches him, and Mark watches right back. It feels somehow different.

“Shower free?” Johnny asks, a little breathless. Mark feels stray droplets streaking down his chest, shivering as they chill against his skin.

“All yours, man.”

Mark could be all his, too. Mark wants to be.

* * *

Mark realises five minutes into Johnny's shower that he has made an awful, terrible mistake. It’s one that he could conceivably brush off, sure, but it feels like a big deal with their dynamic as context. It will probably be fine. 

Probably. 

Perhaps.

See, Mark has left the lube in the shower. While that could potentially work well when employed as a deliberate means of seduction, this is more an act of careless stupidity. It’ll _look_ deliberate, regardless. Johnny will think it so, and Mark only has as long as it takes for Johnny to finish his shower to figure out how he’s going to spin this. 

If he pretends that it was purposeful, then maybe he could- 

No. 

If he-

_No._

There’s no right answer for an anxiety-riddled brain, so it seems. By the time he’s decided to just wing it, therefore, the water is already shutting off in the bathroom. The door swings open mere moments later. “Mark?”

Mark had been sitting with his back to the bathroom, but Johnny's voice makes turning necessary. He just _knows_ that his face is incriminatingly red, and that there’s no way he can feign ignorance. “Yeah, dude?” he says, some pitiful attempt at nonchalance, and his voice cracks in the most horrendous manner. 

“You forgot something, Mark.” Johnny doesn’t _sound_ like he thinks it was forgotten. Mark isn’t quite sure what he does sound like, exactly. It’s kind of like he’s trying to sound calm, but that can’t be it. Johnny is far too cool for such things.

“U-uh huh?” Mark falters. Pretending not to care about how embarrassed you are is difficult when you care so, _so_ much. 

“Here,” Johnny tosses the bottle, and it lands on Mark’s bed. He says nothing further. It’s emptier than he left it, and Mark doesn’t know how to cope with that. 

* * *

Hours later, Mark is still awake. It must be long past midnight, and today’s blinds leak streetlight too. There’s a crack in one of the cheap wooden segments, and it distorts the shadows. Mark stares at them, and tries to clear his mind enough to sleep. Past the acknowledgement of handing it back, plus the fact that Johnny has either maliciously poured some down the drain (unlikely) or used it to jack off (which seems _far_ more likely), Johnny hasn’t said anything else on the topic. Perhaps waiting for Mark to, he’d only paused momentarily before returning to his bedtime routine. Now in their respective beds, Mark thinks that Johnny might still be awake too. His breathing doesn’t seem regular enough for genuine slumber.

Breathing in, Mark tries to rally himself with confidence. 

“Johnny-”

“Mark-”

Unexpectedly, they both speak at once. Somehow, Johnny's laugh sounds even nicer in the dark. Perhaps it’s because Mark listens more intently without the distraction of his quite frankly beautiful face. “You first, man,” Mark offers.

“I was just checking whether you were still awake, too.” It feels like Johnny is telling him only half of a larger truth. Mark can’t trace it.

“Well, I am,” Mark points out the obvious, nervous laughter soon following his words. _His_ laugh doesn’t sound nicer in the dark. Not to him, at least. Probably not to Johnny, either.

“So I see. Well, _hear._ Semantics.” 

Johnny has the cheesiest sense of humour that Mark has ever encountered, and yet- 

Lightly, Mark giggles, fucking _giggles,_ in response. It feels very _ha ha, you’re so funny,_ slapping the bicep type of flirting, but he really cannot help himself. This is just how Mark _is._ Besides, he wouldn’t mind touching Johnny's biceps right about now.

Just at the thought, he forgets to breathe for several long seconds. Then, a long breath floods in, starkly audible in the quiet room. It’s not complete silence— cars go by outside, and there’s a couple yelling at each other in a distant room. But quiet enough. Quiet enough that Mark hears Johnny's breathing falter too. “Mark, I-”

“My bed is uncomfortable!” Mark blurts out, too loud and so, _so_ obviously a lie. “That’s uh, that’s why I can’t sleep.” He tacks on a _bro_ at the end in a fruitless attempt to soften his awful lying.

“Sure. I can, uh, totally hear you tossing and turning,” Johnny goes along with his lie. Mark hadn’t been moving in the slightest. “That’s why I can’t. Sleep, that is”

“Is your bed, uh, comfy then, man?” Mark is so miserably out of his depth, but he can’t seem to stop trying. Johnny’s worth the way his anxiety is making his throat close up. Mark _really, truly_ thinks that Johnny is worth it. “You’d be able to sleep if I could? If I stopped moving.”

“Sure,” Johnny replies. “Something like that.”

“I…” He suddenly starts to run out of steam. “Uh, okay, uh-”

“Want to swap beds?” Johnny asks. Mark _could_ swap beds and pretend to sleep until he actually succeeds, and stop this awkwardly stilting late-night conversation in its tracks. Johnny is offering him an out. It’s nice of him, really. But Mark wants more than nice right now.

“Nah, man, you’re fine.” Mark doesn’t take it. Instead, he considers something incredibly stupid. “Is there room for me without you leaving, though?” A pause. “Hypothetically.”

“We’d be pretty close, but I suppose it could work,” Johnny's voice changes. Cracks a little. _“‘Hypothetically’.”_

“Hypothetically, wouldn’t that be better, dude?” Mark can’t believe he’s doing this, saying this, considering _any_ of this. He wants to more than anything, though, more than anything he’s ever wanted in this world. It’s terrifying, really. “If we could both be comfortable.” He shivers, and his bed creaks. “Hypoth-”

_“Mark.”_ Johnny sounds almost desperate.

“Johnny?”

“Please, I _beg,_ quit the hypotheses already and tell me what you want.”

“I want…”

“You want?...”

“I-” Mark’s consciousness writhes in discomfort, so unused to such openness that bearing it feels almost crushing. “I w-want, I _want-”_ His voice fades. For almost a minute, he doesn’t say a word. The seconds tick by, and every one of them adds to the weight on his chest.

“Perhaps you should try and sleep,” Johnny offers him yet another out. He’s quite generous with those, the sweetest damn guy that Mark has ever met. 

_“Johnny.”_ Mark groans, wishing beyond hope that the obvious tone of his voice will be enough. Gradually, though, it dawns. Johnny isn’t going to initiate anything, not unless Mark says he wants him. Not unless Mark says he wants him _back,_ because Holy Fuck Johnny Actually Wants Him. Mark is pretty sure of it now, that this is where they’re at. _Johnny wants him._ Mark hopes that Johnny wants him, at least, because things are about to enter a whole new realm of awkward if Mark just happens to be an abysmal judge of character.

Sitting up, Mark swings his legs off the side of his bed. They’re shaking, so much so that it feels like a miracle that they don’t give way when he stands. 

“Mark?” Johnny says, and Mark sees confliction. It’s dark, but there’s faint light, after all. Broken blinds map the earnest expression on Johnny's face that’s closer to anticipation than confusion. Mark thinks he looks beautiful. He sits up too. “Mark, what are you doing?”

Mark’s legs keep shaking even _— especially —_ as he sits on the edge of Johnny's bed. He tries to come up with something cool to say. Under the covers, Johnny shakes too, and then Mark thinks of it. He says it at once before his nerves tap out, words as smooth as anything. ( _With a voice that cracks and trembles and isn’t cool at all, really)._ “I’m testing my hypothesis.” 

And then Mark kisses him. 

This isn't Mark’s ‘first kiss’, but it’s also completely his first kiss at the same time. The official title goes to Janie Greenwell from next door, aged nine-and-a-half at a garden party. Sticky hands and lips that tasted like ice-cream and his own repression. Mark prefers _this_ entirely. 

Johnny tastes like lingering traces of toothpaste and hesitant desperation, like someone clinging to the edge of control by the very tips of his fingers. He’s letting Mark take the lead still, he’s holding back, _still._ Mark wants to be surrounded and devoured, not treated like the glass that perhaps he should be with this blundering inexperience. “I want you,” he says, finally completing the sentence. 

“Mark, I-”

It doesn’t sound like an _I don’t want this,_ so Mark pushes the covers back and falls into Johnny's lap, rocking down and trying to make his intentions obvious. “Johnny, _Johnny,”_ Mark groans, arching his neck and pouting when Johnny doesn’t kiss it. Mark really fucking wants Johnny to kiss his neck. “Please?”

Johnny's hands wander a little now at least, up and under Mark’s shirt and grasping at his bare waist. It almost seems like he’s just trying to steady him, but it’s a start to more if Mark plays it right. “God, baby,” Johnny chokes out, and Mark’s cock fills from half-hard to straining in what feels like seconds at his tone. At the name he calls Mark. He’s holding back, and Mark wants him to _stop._ Perhaps it shows in his eyes, in the barely-there light cast across them both. Johnny's own eyes are dark in the streetlight. Mark _wants,_ with the aching kind of desperation that people write songs about. 

“More,” he gasps out, Johnny's hands tightening at his waist as he speaks. “Please give me more, Johnny, please, pleasepleaseplease-”

“You deserve more than a shitty motel room, Mark,” Johnny says, and they both know what he means. Mark’s virginity is as subtle as a megaphone in a library. It’s a sweet sentiment, but Mark cares less about their location and more about the way Johnny feels under him, hard in his boxers and pressing in all the right places. Just _this_ is making Mark wetter than he can ever remember being in his life. He knows there’s a damp patch on the front of his briefs without even looking down. 

“Don’t _care_ about what you think I deserve, dude,” Mark retorts, and if Johnny won’t kiss Mark’s neck then he’ll kiss Johnny's instead. He ducks down, mouthing over the slightly salty expanse of it, grazing his teeth over his pulsepoint. Johnny tastes just like Mark has been fantasising about. Mark speaks his next words with his lips pressed to flushed skin. “Want you to ruin me, man,” he confesses, moving to press stuttering kisses to Johnny’s perfect jawline, “Want you to fucking _wreck_ me, Johnny.”

“But, you-”

“But I _nothing,”_ Mark bites back, all youthful stubbornness and hips rocking down against him. “If you don’t have me it’ll only be someone else,” he points out, “Someone I know even less than you. Maybe it’ll be at a club. Maybe I’ll let him fuck me in an alley out back. A dirty fucking alley, Johnny, way worse than a motel room, and he won’t even know my _name.”_

And he’s shaking. 

By _fuck_ is Mark shaking, and he’s pressed against Johnny, who can definitely feel it too. He’s scared by how much he wants him, enough that he’ll put himself so far outside of his usual comfort zone to get his point across. Mark of a week ago would never have considered climbing into a near-stranger’s lap like this. But Johnny doesn’t feel like a stranger, and Mark _wants to feel._

“You…” Johnny's resolve is fading, and Mark knows it.

“I _what?”_

“You’re fucking _deadly_ when you want to be, Mark Lee,” Johnny says, and Mark takes it as a compliment.

“Wouldn’t you rather make it good for me, baby?” Mark dares to ask, reveling in the way the pet name makes Johnny groan. It’s a step up from Mark’s usual fall-backs of _dude, bro_ and _man,_ certainly. “Wouldn’t you rather it be _you,_ Johnny?” He reaches under his own shirt, lets one hand rest over Johnny's on his waist. “You know my name, I know yours. Can’t that be enough?”

“Mark, are you sure that you-”

“I _want_ this, as long as you do.”

“I do.” Johnny gives in with an audible sigh that says more than any words could hope to. “Fuck, Mark, baby, of course I do.” He pauses before speaking softer, belying the sweet soul Mark knows he’s happened upon. “And I could make it enough.” 

Mark knows he’s won. 

“You’ll be more than enough for me, Johnny,” Mark promises. Johnny stares at Mark’s mouth, which must be kiss-swollen by now. He wonders if he’s pretty like this. He hopes so. His thoughts are spiralling out of control. “Please Johnny, you _know_ I want you. Please make it better?” 

There’s no need to say what ‘it’ is. Johnny will be able to feel _it_ pressed against his firm stomach. 

“Kiss me again, baby.” It sounds like a compromise, and Mark blinks in half-confusion. There’s a long pause before he speaks again. “Kiss me, and I promise that I’ll make it better.” _Kiss me if you really want this,_ Johnny seems to say. _Kiss me and there’s no going back._

Mark’s hands tighten in Johnny's messy hair. They tighten, and they pull Johnny against him, making him gasp close enough that Mark feels it on his skin. And there’s no going back, sure, but Mark doesn’t want to. Not at all. 

It feels like Mark has been kissed into eternity by the time Johnny finally flips them over, caging Mark in. Time seems to be drawn out and speeding past simultaneously, faster than Mark could have ever imagined. He’d thought the whole ‘ _running away from his hometown’_ thing would be the only significant life event this week, but Mark has somehow ended up with a beautiful man hovering over him, thigh pushing between Mark’s legs like it’s always supposed to have been there. It _aches._ Their bodies, still with far too many layers between them, seem to slot together like puzzle pieces. Some perfect cliche. 

Yet Mark still feels a desperate sort of not-quite-complete, and he doesn’t even know what to ask for. And so, gasping, he just begs for- _“More,_ Johnny!”

Johnny gives him more, no doubt about it. It’s the first time Mark has had any other hand than his own around himself, and the fact it’s someone who looks like Johnny makes the fumbling excitement all the more electrifying. His back arches off the sheets as Johnny jerks his dripping cock, vast amounts of precum aiding the divine friction between them. Bucking into Johnny's hand, Mark whines open-mouthed, blinking up at Johnny wide-eyed and trying to purvey his desperation, his seemingly limitless want for this god of a man. For Johnny. Johnny and only Johnny, the only man Mark’s brain can comprehend in this lust-shrouded haze. “Can I-” Johnny starts to ask, but Mark cuts him off at once.

“Yes.”

“You don’t even know what I’m-”

“My answer is _yes,_ man.” Mark has never been more certain.

“I want to taste you, Mark,” Johnny admits, breaking eye contact like he’s shy saying the words out loud. Maybe it’s to make Mark feel less inexperienced, or maybe Mark has this effect on Johnny. Maybe Mark makes Johnny nervous too, the stomach-flipping, tingling kind of nervousness that floods Mark’s senses when he’s around him. That seems silly, but Mark kind of hopes for it. “Can I, baby?”

“Taste what?” Mark asks. He knows what— he hasn’t been living under a rock for the past nearly-twenty years. But he wants to hear Johnny say it. 

And Johnny can tell, pinning Mark with an inescapable look that makes his boldness crawl away and whimper. Johnny is suddenly a different realm of otherness, of experience and beauty and chilling confidence that sets Mark alight. _Nervousness, indeed._ Mark feels foolish for even considering it. “I want to _suck_ your _cock,_ Mark Lee,” Johnny tells him without shame, slow and oh-so-deliberate. Mark squirms under him, and Johnny laughs a little under his breath, pauses long enough to make him shiver. “If that’s alright with you?...”

It takes a moment for Mark to make any sounds at all, let alone any verging on coherency. At last, he manages to choke out a pitiful sort of plea. It’s enough for Johnny, who pushes Mark up against the flat motel pillows and moves down the bed, pulling Mark’s pyjama pants with him. Mark’s erection rests wetly against his stomach, sticky and gross in a way he doesn’t care about right now past hoping he tastes okay. He thumbs over the mess of precum at the tip of his cock, and sucks the digit discerningly past his lips. 

He’s salty, but not too sharp. It’s the best he can really hope for on a roadtrip diet— he’ll have to eat some fruit tomorrow. Coming back to focus from his spaced-out deliberation, he only then notices the way Johnny's eyes have darkened still further. “What is it, man?” Mark asks, taken aback and more than a little nervous. 

“You’re so hot, baby, is all,” Johnny praises him down from his anxiety, kissing up one of his thighs. “Tasting yourself like that.” Mark trembles to the touch, and it only makes Johnny pause to mark his skin. “Adorable.” That makes Mark moan loud enough that Johnny doesn’t ask before adding another bruise, and then another, and another after that. A trail of pretty hickeys span from just above his knee all the way up to his hips. Mark likes himself like this. Branded. A future reminder of what’s soon to transpire. 

Johnny takes Mark’s cock back in hand. From the way Johnny looks, long lashes framed with fractured streetlight, Mark knows without a doubt that he won’t last long. “Johnny,” he groans, reverent. “Shit, dude, you’re so…”

“Perfect?” Johnny teases, tilted grin playful as he coos at the precum beading in needy abundance at Mark’s slit. Mark’s so _wet,_ so much so that it’s getting embarrassing. 

And though he’s teasing, and Mark well knows it- “Yeah. You kinda are, man.” He’s only being honest. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen anything so close to perfection as Johnny's head between Mark’s bruised-up thighs. Johnny looks up, still smiling, and Mark whoops internally as his cheeks flush dark. “So gorgeous, Johnny,” He chases more, greedy for the giddy feeling that comes with flustering someone this beautiful. 

In retaliation for Mark’s less-than-subtle ploy, Johnny's tongue flicks out, rubbing at the sensitive underside of his cockhead and making him keen high in the back of his throat. He sounds pathetic, and he likes himself like this more than he cares to admit. “You’re the pretty one right now,” Johnny promises. He’s teasing Mark right back, yet it’s with a distinct skew towards genuinity. Mark feels small, but in a good way. Like Johnny could envelop him. Mark wants him to. “Such a pretty baby for me, Markie. Gonna let me make you come?”

“I could come just from you talking to me like that, dude,” Mark admits. He isn’t lying. 

“I’d explore that if I had the patience,” Johnny tells him, then lets his tongue trace wetly up from base to tip, getting Mark messy and making him throb all the more. He’s closer than ever— Johnny can clearly tell. “But right now, I think I’d rather taste you more, pretty baby.”

“I think I’d be okay with that,” Mark chokes out, brain all clouds of _want, want, want_ that leave little room for organised thoughts to escape from their midst. “M-More than okay with, with that, Johnny, please Johnny-”

“Message received,” Johnny echoes that moment in the car, back when his knowledge of Mark’s body had been limited to a hand on his jean-clad thigh. His hands are on Mark’s thighs now, too. Spreading them, bracing himself on their softness as he leans down and doesn’t stop.

Mark lasts for what seems like a blissful eternity, but is all of fifteen seconds of sweet forever when Johnny gives it his all. Johnny stays there, working him through it with his hands splayed on Mark’s thighs and his lips still wrapped tight around Mark’s cock. He swallows all he’s given, and it’s a sight that will be eternally seared into Mark’s brain. No matter how long it takes him to get laid once Johnny leaves him behind, Mark now has enough jack-off material to last him a decade. 

“How do you want to, you know, uh,” Mark murmurs then, all too aware that Johnny is unspent. “You want me to help?”

Mark is more than willing to, and they’re both aware of it, but Johnny shakes his head. Before the self-doubt Mark is prone to can set in, he speaks. “Can I just—” Johnny motions lewdly with his hand, “— while looking at you? You’re gorgeous like this.”

“Holy _shit,_ dude,” Mark forgets how to breathe, “Sure, yeah. Go ahead.”

When Johnny pulls his cock out, some part of Mark balks at the sheer size of the thing, because how can that _possibly fit?_ Even with his self-diagnosed size kink, it’s beyond intimidating. He’s only a little longer than Mark’s own above-averageness, but the real kicker is the girth of it. It feels like comparing a pencil to a pool noodle. Just looking at it makes him shudder. 

Another, larger part of Mark wants to spread his legs that instant, beg Johnny to fuck him instead of getting himself off. But Johnny wants _this_ right now, and who is Mark to deny him something so utterly flattering? Mark has never thought of himself like this, as someone desirable enough to just lay there like a pinup and be watched with dark eyes as Johnny strokes himself to completion. 

Yet somehow, apparently, he _is._

Because Mark lays there, and Johnny _watches_ him, hand moving with focused desperation as Mark pants gently from his own comedown. And when Johnny is clearly _just_ about to push himself to release, Mark scrambles between Johnny's thighs to catch it. He wants oh-so-desperately to taste him in return that he doesn’t think about how pornographic he must seem with his tongue hanging out and waiting, not until Johnny swears loudly and comes instantly at the sight. Johnny _wants_ him, and there’s no prettier reiteration of that than Johnny's face all scrunched up and lost in orgasmic bliss. He tastes better than Mark— Mark has recent comparison, after all. Something about Johnny makes that unsurprising. 

Mark thinks Johnny is kind of perfect, and he tells him so. 

Johnny laughs. “I’m far from perfect, Mark. You just have nothing else to compare me to.”

“That doesn’t have to mean that,” Mark retorts, whiny. He fights the urge to be clingy, only for Johnny to be the one to pull Mark into his arms. It seems that Johnny is clingy too, and they’ve contained enough fluids that it isn’t too disgustingly sticky to be held. “Let me think you’re perfect, dude.”

Johnny sighs, curling Mark in his hold until he’s spooning him. It’s oddly intimate, but Mark doesn’t think too much into it. He tries not to, at least. The bed is only so big, after all, and pretty much any other position would have one or both of them falling off of it. “I’ll be your perfect for now, then.” 

For now. 

For _tonight,_ and only for tonight, he supposes. Mark regrets not begging Johnny to fuck him, because this is likely a one time thing, surely. Mark was desirable, somehow, for a moment— but the moment must now have passed. Johnny feels so out of Mark’s league that Mark should be immeasurably lucky for this experience alone, anyway. 

Then, as if Mark’s spiralling thoughts are somehow loud enough to permeate the air. “Mark?”

“... Johnny?”

“Go to sleep, baby.” And it means nothing, sure, but Johnny pulls him closer. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> do not practice unsafe sex! though not explicitly stated, johnny's reasoning here is that he knows he's clean himself + that mark is a Virgin with a capital V. but still. b safe!
> 
> with that out of the way-- I hope you enjoyed chapter two!! please let me know what you thought of this update in the comments if you can - it would really mean the world to me, even if it's just a cheer for gay little mark lee actually getting some action. kudos are the loveliest also.
> 
> also!! i posted a johnyumark oneshot completely separate to this. complete awful pwp filth, if you fancy checking that out <3
> 
> [twt](https://twitter.com/scbaes)
> 
> [cc](https://curiouscat.qa/scbaes)
> 
> \- V xxx


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Mark thinks that’s just how Johnny is, an amalgamation of features that wouldn’t work for anyone but him. Inside and out. He stares at the bow of Johnny’s pretty lips, and yearns to kiss away their complexity until they’re bruised and swollen to his design._

In the morning, they don’t talk about it immediately. Mark wakes up on the floor, having somehow rolled out of the small bed in the night without it interrupting his sleep, so he’s able to go get washed up before Johnny joins him in consciousness. Instead of awkward discussion, Mark chokes down some too-sweet cereal and spends the first few hours of the drive zoning out thinking about Johnny's cock. Romance at its finest, truly.

They pass a field that looks underwatered, browned and withering away. Mark stares at it pensively. He feels a little like that, all dried up before his life has even started. He’s equally as at fault as Johnny for not discussing it, but he can’t help but wish Johnny would bring it up. Thinking about doing so himself makes Mark’s stomach churn, like the unpleasant breakfast had been full of bang snaps that are now going off inside him. In all honesty, Mark wonders if he’ll be able to seduce Johnny again. If he _can’t,_ then not going further for his only chance with him will forever be one of Mark’s greatest regrets. 

Progressing from stepping into a stranger’s car in the pouring rain to wanting that same stranger to take your virginity is quite the evolution for two days. Mark has always fallen hard and fast, though. On a school trip into the city, a store clerk with a pretty smile had complimented Mark’s hair, and he had thought about it for something close to six months. Somehow, Johnny is no longer a stranger to Mark. It feels like he’s known him far longer than it has been in reality. Not quite forever, but enough to write love songs about. 

It’s ridiculous, but he can’t help it. His penchant for fast emotional attachments has been a flaw in his character. It has always hurt him, and this will be no exception. Mark may be foolish, but he isn’t stupid— there’s no painless way that this can end if he dares to push on in his pursuit. While stopping sooner rather than later would hurt him less in the long run, Mark yearns to go all in. 

_Johnny has the potential to be Mark’s first true heartbreak, and wouldn’t that be a beautiful thing?_

“Was that all you wanted, last night?” Johnny asks, turning the radio down to a faint murmur. It’s the culmination of several hours of on-and-off small talk, but once brought up he doesn’t dance around it. He’s been an adult for a while now, after all. Mark is still getting used to this stage of life. Then, despite his nonchalant tone, Mark notices Johnny's ears are turning red. He wants to whoop at the proof that Johnny is nervous too, because it makes him feel less like a kid out of his depth. “If you want more-”

“I do!” Mark blurts out, then coughs in an unsuccessful attempt to mask his embarrassment. He sounded so _desperate._ Not that he isn’t. “I mean, I do want more. If you do, and I understand if you don’t because you’re so _hot,_ dude, and I’m just me, and you’re so hot.” Another awkward cough. “I just called you ‘so hot’ twice in the same sentence, fuck.”

“You’re adorable,” Johnny cuts in, a welcome end to Mark’s rambling. 

“If you say so,” Mark tries to act less affected than he is, and fails. “Are you, uh, would you say you’re into adorable, man?”

“Very much so, Mark Lee,” Johnny replies. Mark wants to punch the air. Johnny is into adorable, and Johnny thinks that _he_ is adorable, so Johnny is into _him._ Perhaps the Johnny sucking his dick last night thing should have shown this, but Mark is riddled with a lifetime of insecurities.

“That’s, uh, good to know.” _Smooth, Mark. Real, real smooth._

Then, Johnny turns Mark’s world upside down. “Can I suck you off again then, baby? You were so cute last night, drove me mad.”

He says that- He says _that_ with his eyes on the road, one hand on the steering wheel and one making itself once more familiar with Mark’s thigh. His hand is so unfairly large, proportional to Johnny’s large every-part-of-him, and it makes Mark’s bare-minimum thing for size differences act up like nobody’s business. _“Fuck,_ man,” he whines, nervous laughter coming out so high pitched it sounds almost like a witch’s cackle. _Super sexy, nice one Mark. Way to seduce the hot older man._

“We can get to that too, if you want,” Johnny says, and Mark’s internal organs feel like they’re being suddenly sucked into a black hole. “Not in the car, though…” he trails off, seeming to reconsider his words, “Not the _first_ time, at least.”

Mark can physically feel the cogs turning in his brain, registering ‘Johnny wants to fuck him’, followed just as devastatingly by ‘Johnny just thought about fucking him _in the car’._ He tries to speak, but the extra intrusive thought of ‘wait, Johnny wants to suck Mark’s dick _right now’_ appears, and it comes out as a pitiful _hhhhngh_ noise, like an overheated motor packing it in and powering down. 

“Does that translate to ‘pull over’ in English, Markie?” Johnny teases, wandering hand shifting to Mark’s inner thigh. He’s more sensitive there, and Johnny has already picked up on it. _Bastard._ Johnny smiles, and squeezes harder. It makes Mark’s leg kick out. “Does it, baby?”

“Oh, fuck you, man,” Mark groans as Johnny cups his cock and makes his eyes roll back.

“If you play your cards right, sure,” Johnny readily agrees, “I’m down for that.” Mark thinks he hates him. He wants Johnny so badly that he’s burning up from the inside out. “But back to the matter at hand,” Johnny says, and Mark thinks Johnny would shoot him finger-guns if he weren’t driving; Mark’s dick is in his hand and the pun was very much deliberate, “Get it, _hand?”_

Mark curses his treacherous body, because he can’t seem to help but laugh at Johnny’s terrible joke like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard. Raucous, head thrown back and far too loud, the whole damn works. Johnny beams, proud of his own lameness. Mark can’t even regret feeding his ego if it makes Johnny smile like that. But then Johnny palms Mark’s cock again, and it makes him a whole lot less selfless. “Johnny, if you don’t pull over right now I’m going to die,” he tells him, voice entirely serious, “You’ll have to live with that on your permanent record _and_ your conscience, dude. Like, _forever.”_

Mark’s complaining bears fruition, and Johnny pulls off down a dirt track, parking in the shade of a tree so large it must be ancient. Mark likes how Johnny looks with shadows cast across his face, just like the broken blinds from last night. This time, it’s light enough out that Mark can still see Johnny just fine. He prefers it. Johnny is just so _fucking beautiful_ that Mark needs constant visual reminders that he’s real. 

It means that Johnny can see him too, though. Mark’s anxiety doesn’t like that quite so much, scared that Johnny will realise he isn’t actually attractive in the daylight. Though he doesn’t _hate_ his appearance, it just feels a little lacking held up to Johnny. He pushes the feelings down. There’s no way he’s going to forfeit a wonderful experience just because he doesn’t much like himself in comparison to a godlike physique. 

As soon as the car’s stopped, Johnny unbuckles first his seatbelt and then Mark’s, making to bend between the seats so fast that Mark almost can’t tell who’s more desperate. “Dude, wait,” Mark pushes Johnny’s shoulder, and he instantly pulls back. He already has his hand at Mark’s zipper, but moves it away.

“You good, man?” Johnny checks. He tilts his head, puppy-like and eager, and Mark dies all the more. “No pressure, of course.”

“No, I just, uh- I wanna, uh, _you,_ dude, uh,” Mark stammers out, finding it even harder to say what he wants from Johnny than he’d expected. Eye contact as intense as the kind Johnny supplies is enough to break Mark apart. “I-” his eyes flick down to Johnny’s zipper, and the way he’s visibly straining against it. _That’s for him. Johnny wants him that much, somehow._ “I…”

Despite Mark’s incoherency, the direction of his gaze lets Johnny in on his scrambled thoughts. Johnny smiles, leaning back into his seat with a decidedly smug expression. “You?…”

“You’re the worst, dude,” Mark rolls his eyes, and pretends he isn’t shaking like a leaf from nerves and arousal both. He decides to just try and spit it out. “Let me try and suck your dick?” Emphasis on _try,_ because Mark’s mouth is small and Johnny’s everything is, well. Yeah.

Johnny unbuckles his belt, the clinking of metal loud in the sudden tense silence that’s fallen between them. He gets this _look_ on his face, the one that Mark’s fast learning means he’s about to say some awful joke or something overly cocky. Either way, he’s all too pleased with his thoughts. “What’s the magic word?” he drawls out in some mockery of a seductive tone. _Overly cocky it is, then._ Mark’s dignity takes a hit when he realises he’s actually still turned on by it. Maybe it’s the fact that Johnny’s hung as hell, and he’s just pulled his dick out. Maybe Mark just likes guys that make him blush. 

Still, he tries to drag back at least _some_ sense of self-respect. Mark leans down, lips almost touching Johnny’s Godly-Thing-of-Dreams of a cock, and then _he_ pauses. It hurts to, but he makes himself. Every cell in his little gay body screams at him for it, but he waits. “I don’t know, dude— you tell me. What is it?”

They’re at a stalemate, Johnny teasing Mark and Mark daringly turning it around on him. Attempting to, at least. “Nice one,” Johnny sounds genuinely impressed, “We’ll make a player out of you yet, Mark Lee.”

He doesn’t _want_ to be a player. His heart is too soft for that. After Johnny, he hopes he’ll find someone that loves him for it. But that’s nothing Mark much wishes to dwell upon right now.

Mark sighs dramatically. His falsely imbued confidence won’t last much longer, so he’s got to make it count. He’s about .5 seconds from breaking down and begging, and he wants Johnny to think he’s cooler than that. “I’m waiting,” he says, looking up and holding eye contact for as long as he lets his tongue loll out. Poised like he’s waiting for Johnny to come in his mouth again already. He knows what he looks like when he does this (like a fucking pornstar), reference gathered from when he’s jerked off watching himself in the bathroom mirror, and he hopes it’s enough.

Johnny swears, loudly.

_Perhaps it is._ “Johnny?” he prompts, pouting up at him. “Aren’t you gonna tell me what the word is?”

And he’s playing it up beyond exaggeration, but it works, it _works,_ and Johnny’s hand is in his hair now. Pulling a little too hard, just enough to make Mark whimper and leak precum in his pants. “The word is _please,_ baby boy. Try it.”

Mark bats his eyes, the perfect picture of innocence. He doesn’t know what’s come over him. He knows _who_ he wants to come over him, though. _Ha._ “Please, Johnny?” he says, drawing out _pleeease_ like the word is new to his vocabulary and he’s trying it on for size. Perhaps Mark should tone it down — he probably seems ridiculous — but Johnny is eating up every cliche Mark hands him. 

“Good boy,” Johnny praises him. It sets off a full-body shiver in Mark, impossible to hide. Johnny smiles like he’s won the lottery. “Figures,” he murmurs to himself, petting Mark’s hair where he’d pulled it before. Mark sighs into the touch, and watches Johnny jump against his navel, dripping and darkened from an overflow of blood. Johnny’s just as into this dynamic as Mark is. It’s reassuring, to say the least.

Guided down by a hand in his hair that’s gentler than before, Mark wraps his lips tentatively around the head of Johnny’s cock. He tries to remember the tricks Johnny had used on him so that he can employ them in return, but all he can think about right now is that he’s never been more aware of his teeth in his entire life. They’re smallish, he guesses, so hopefully that means he’s less likely to drag them uncomfortably across Johnny’s skin. Perfect cocks like Johnny’s deserve someone more experienced than Mark’s hesitant mouth to worship them, but luckily Johnny doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo. 

Looking to the side, Mark sees Johnny’s free hand clenched into a fist, white-knuckled and absolutely indicative of the fact he’s holding back. Mark’s aware that he’s kind of terrible at this, but stimulation is stimulation, so he’s making do with sucking the tip of Johnny’s cock like it’s an intimidatingly sized lollipop and jacking the rest with his shaking hands. Johnny nudges the back of his head ever-so-slightly, and Mark gauges just how much he can feasibly get in his mouth before he’s flailing and coughing and pulling back to breathe. He blinks up at Johnny with his head resting on his thigh, hands still working his cock because he’s kinda scared Johnny will go soft from Mark’s all around terribleness. 

“You’re precious, Mark Lee,” Johnny praises, ruffling his hair, and Mark isn’t sure whether to be offended by Johnny cooing over him or come in his pants untouched. (His dick likes him being cooed over, that’s for sure). Johnny’s fingernails scratch across Mark’s scalp, tingly and wonderful and relaxing, and Mark sighs into it. His toes curl up in his Converse. Johnny _tugs,_ just a little, just enough. Mark whines like he’s breaking apart. Johnny smiles like he knows it. “You good, baby?” 

_Baby._ Mark muffles a whimper into Johnny’s inner thigh, and stifles the next with his cock. 

He keeps Johnny in his mouth when he comes, all stuttering hips and gasped-out praises. It tastes sort of awful, sure, but it’s the new best moment of Mark’s life.

* * *

“I must say,” Johnny remarks, flicking the indicator and turning onto another long stretch of road, “This journey is turning out a lot different to my expectations.”

Mark looks up from trying to wipe cum off his jeans with a spit-dampened diner napkin. He’d lasted a little longer this time, but still nothing on Johnny’s stamina. “You and me both, man— I was just hoping not to get axe-murdered, honestly.”

“Plenty of time for that,” Johnny replies jauntily, eyes flicking away from the road for a moment to smile at Mark in a way that shows he’s joking. Even if he wasn’t, there’s worse people to get axe-murdered by than a hot guy who’s sucked your dick first. Mark realises he’s accidentally said this out loud when Johnny laughs so hard that he almost needs to pull over. 

It had been unintentional, sure, but Mark notes down Johnny’s laughter as a personal victory. _Hottest guy he’s ever met finds him funny: check._ Mark can’t seem to resist laughing at quite literally anything Johnny says or does, so it’s a nice bonus to have it reciprocated from time to time. Maybe the extent of his self-satisfaction shows somewhat, because Johnny laughs again. Softer and fonder this time. Mark burns up inside, just a little.

“I’d rather you didn’t axe-murder me, though, dude,” Mark tries to joke the embarrassment away. It doesn’t work.

“Even though I’m hot and I’ve sucked your dick?” Johnny quotes Mark’s own words right back at him. The reality behind them doesn’t mean Mark’s any less flustered by hearing Johnny _say them out loud._ “You could do worse, like you said.”

“I literally just sucked yours— does that mean I can axe-murder _you?”_ Mark counters, chest tight with the need to laugh because Johnny is _so funny, so cool,_ and it seems like Mark is a goner for men like Johnny. They’re talking about axe-murdering, for Christ’s sake, and it’s the most fun Mark has had in years.

Johnny ponders, putting way too much thought into it. “Good point, good point. I suppose I’ll have to tip the balance, huh?”

The barely repressed laughter streams out in one long burst of awkwardness and nerves. It sounds _awful,_ and Mark wouldn’t blame Johnny for axe-murdering him just to make it _stop,_ already. Hell, Mark would like to axe-murder _himself_ right about now. “Dude, what does that even mean?”

“Whatever you want it to, baby.” Johnny’s hand drops back onto Mark’s thigh — thankfully not on the leg that’s damp from Mark cleaning cum off it. He’s steering one-handedly again, and improper road safety etiquette has never been sexier. Mark feels his whole entire being buzzing and centred around the feeling of Johnny’s hand resting on him. “What _do_ you want it to mean?”

God, Mark hates that Johnny can turn the topic like this so easy. “I, u-uh…” It feels like Mark has been stumbling over his words these past couple days more than his entire life, and he’d been forced to join the debate team as an anxious twelve-year old. 

“Why don’t you just think about it— let me know when we’re at the next stop?” Johnny offers, his lovely voice as gentle as anything even as he palms Mark through his jeans. He’s still sensitive from before, and it makes him whimper. “Whatever you think up, I can guarantee I know how.”

Mark hates him. Mark _hates_ him. “Big words— sure you can live up to them, man?” Bravado doesn’t work well when his voice comes out an octave too high. 

“Of course I can. Plus, what can I say?…” Johnny hums, cocky smile in place. Mark does not want to know where this sentence is going, not with _that_ look accompanying it. “... Everything about me is big.”

Briefly, Mark considers jumping out of the moving car. Johnny isn’t even wrong, and that’s the worst part. Johnny’s tall, broad, and entirely proportional in that regard. His hands, his thighs, his _cock._ Mark’s brain catches on that first thought. He goes slightly slack-jawed as he stares at Johnny’s pretty hand on the steering wheel, imagining it somewhere else entirely. “You’re the worst, man,” he groans, though there’s no real bite in it at all. His gaze yo-yos between Johnny’s one-handed driving and the hand covering his thigh. “You aren’t as funny as you think you are, either.”

Johnny looks at Mark, back at the steering wheel, and at Mark blatantly staring at his hands as he drives. “Uh huh,” he replies, smug, “Just keep thinking, Mark Lee. I’ll give you whatever you want.”

_Whatever he wants._ Mark believes him, truly, _genuinely,_ believes him. It feels like flying. It also feels like his chest is caving in. Determinedly, Mark focuses on the flying. “Okay,” he goes along with it, with the casual tone Johnny’s offering up, “I’ll think about it.”

Mark turns up the radio, and lets Queen drown out his mind.

* * *

“I play guitar,” Mark offers up a while later. A way to break the silence, because the tape has run out and neither of them have replaced it. An interest shared between them. Mark absolutely understands how small talk works, _totally._ “I think I’d like to do it more.”

“You don’t have one with you,” Johnny points out. It’s not weighted, merely an observation.

“It got smashed a week or so ago,” Mark replies. 

There’s plenty of room for inference, but Johnny does not pry. Mark likes that about him. Johnny gets him, somehow, in a way that Mark has never experienced in his near twenty years on this planet. _Sad, isn’t it?_ Their easy rapport isn’t built of some influx of conversations, but from a latent sense of mutual understanding. There’s something there, something that Johnny has escaped before. Something that Mark has only just begun to run from. 

“I see.” 

Many people say that, but few can truly claim to mean it when it comes to Mark Lee. As of yet, Johnny is the only one still standing. There’d been a teacher in fifth grade, but she had moved away. Mark had felt it as keenly as the loss of a parent. Or, at least, how he imagines that would be with the presence of familial attachment. 

“Haven’t got much original stuff yet, but I’d like to. I’ve mainly been learning song covers,” he admits. Song covers won’t mean much to someone already established as a producer, but it’s something, at least.

“It’s a shame you don’t have a guitar with you,” Johnny laments, sounding genuinely morose about the fact, “I’d love to hear you.”

There’s an opportunity for a joke about making sweet music together in there, a veer in conversational tone that doesn’t appeal so much right now. At the moment, Mark wants serious.

“I’ll save up for a new one,” Mark continues, “Don’t want to blow all my savings at once, obviously. Hopefully I’ll be able to find somewhere to work.”

“You will,” Johnny says. It sounds more certain than blind confidence in Mark’s interview skills. He wonders why, but does not ask. Right now, Mark is quite steadfastly set on getting to know Johnny a little more. 

Because Johnny is going to fuck him. If he wants to (and Mark _thinks_ that he wants to), Mark will let him. Hell, he’ll lay there and beg for it all that Johnny likes. 

“What kind of music do you make?”

“It varies,” Johnny replies, steeped in ambiguity. “It depends on who I’m making it with,” he then adds, like an afterthought. It sounds like the greasiest pickup line known to man, but is spoken with sincerity. Mark thinks that’s just how Johnny is, an amalgamation of features that wouldn’t work for anyone but him. Inside and out. He stares at the bow of Johnny’s pretty lips, and yearns to kiss away their complexity until they’re bruised and swollen to his design.

He wants to leave bruises between Johnny’s thighs, just like the other man has done to him. Staining his skin, branding him temporarily so that he’ll remember Mark just that slightest bit longer. 

“And who are you making it with this time?” Mark presses on. He doesn’t know why he feels quite this desperate to know somebody. Perhaps it’s the timer, ticking on in the background of every interaction. A limit to what foolishly feels like some slice of perfect foreverness, ready to smash at any second.

“Have you heard of Haechan?”

Mark has not. “Never.”

“I’ll be sure to let him know that he’s yet to reach household name status in small town nowhere,” Johnny says, an edge to his tone that belies teasing foreplanned. “It’ll do him good to be knocked down a peg or two, pretentious little darling.”

Johnny clearly knows him well. _Very_ well. Something coils tight in Mark’s insides— he has no desire to know the extent of it. No desire for someone else to encroach onto Mark’s slice of forever. “Kun’s a producer too, you said?” Johnny had mentioned it somewhere along the way, a throwaway glimpse into his life that Mark’s brain had latched onto. Nothing is inconsequential about Johnny to him. 

“I did,” Johnny confirms, “What about it?”

“Have you worked with him?” Mark asks, steering the conversation away from the hint of exasperated fondness in Johnny’s voice. 

“From time to time. We have fairly different styles, but sometimes they collide.” 

Mark wants to know _more,_ far more than he’s willing to disclose about himself. Maybe that’s the problem, all take and no give. Johnny can probably sense it, given Mark is hardly subtle. He’s spent a life hiding everything about himself that he can, so suddenly halting such defenses feels weird. It feels _wrong,_ like it’ll make the planet tilt on its axis and tip him right off. “I don’t have a style yet.”

“You have time for that, _Almost Twenty.”_ Johnny says his age like a nickname, and Mark would hate it from anyone else. Anyone else at all.

“I know. I’ll get there.”

Mark has never meant those words before.

* * *

Another gas station. Another cashier that bags up lube for him without a word and calls him _son,_ because Mark still has one of those faces, as ever. Johnny smiles like Mark’s _just the cutest thing_ when he gets back in the car and recounts this. Being cute isn’t so bad when it’s Johnny that thinks it.

They pull into another parking lot an hour or so after that, this one a little less grimy than the ones preceding it. In many ways, it still feels like settling into a routine. And, yes, Mark is aware of the dangers in indulging such thoughts. 

He goes to open the door, but Johnny stops him. The older man is fidgeting, like he’s nervous about something. Mark’s helpful anxiety supplies numerous reasons, principally _Johnny has changed his mind about wanting him,_ and he steels himself for it. The rejection. 

It doesn’t come.

Instead, Johnny’s hand clammy around Mark’s wrist, the conversation veers in an entirely different direction. “What do you want to do about the room?”

Mark, brain still steeped in nerves, completely misinterprets his words. “... You want separate rooms?” Teeth worry at his bottom lip, almost breaking through the skin. He can’t even meet Johnny’s eyes, all of a sudden. “Did I do something wrong?”

“I mean the _bed,_ Mark,” Johnny hastens to clarify. He hooks a finger under Mark’s chin, lifting his head up like he’s about to kiss him, and Mark’s heart starts racing for another reason entirely. “Are you comfortable with…”

Quite enjoying the sight of Johnny flustered, now that he knows it isn’t for negative reasons, Mark draws it out. “Comfortable with what?”

Johnny’s thumb traces across Mark’s lower lip, smoothing over the near-broken skin. Tantalisingly slow. _Has Mark mentioned lately that he hates him and his ridiculously good game?_ “With just the one.”

“The one _what,_ Johnny?” Mark blinks. _Once, twice, three times._ Slow and deliberate.

“Christ, you make me want to ruin you so bad,” Johnny says, blurting the words out like he just can’t help it. He steeples his fingers, pressing them to his temple, obviously calming himself down. _Fuck, Mark is affecting him like this._ Mark’s heart stops, drops to his stomach, and then begins to beat at three times its normal speed. “Are you _okay_ with only one _bed?”_

Truth be told, Mark had considered going in early and trying to bribe the receptionist into saying there was only one room available. It’s not particularly suave of him, though, so he doesn’t admit to it. Not that Mark is particularly ‘suave’ like this, either: nervous laughter and wide eyes and sweaty palms. He rubs them on his thighs. Wets his lips. “I’d be _so_ okay with that, dude,” he says, sounding far past desperate. With Johnny, that seems to be Mark’s default state, “With, uh, with both of those things.”

“You’re cute, Mark Lee.” Mark’s heart stops all over again. “Grab the bags for us?”

As soon as _sure_ has left Mark’s lips, Johnny is hurrying off without him. He leaves the keys for Mark to lock up, a startling display of trust in a near-stranger despite the fact that Mark can’t drive. Mark realises he’s fallen for a ploy only when he staggers inside under the weight of their two bags and sees that Johnny has already paid for their room. _Their_ room. It had been ‘theirs’ before, sure, but this is something so very different. 

He drops the bags at Johnny’s feet, deciding that if he’s going to be a conniving room-paying bastard, he can at least carry them himself. 

The receptionist looks between Mark and Johnny several times, and then back at the booking in front of her. “Are you sure you didn’t mean a _twin_ room for you and your brother, sir?” she checks, tone veering much too close to flirtatious for Mark’s liking, “Perhaps even two singles? We have very competitive rates if you want the space.”

Johnny’s arm loops easily around Mark’s small waist, pulling him against his side. Mark yelps embarrassingly at the surprise action, but stares defiantly at the receptionist just the same. Johnny is _his_ on this journey. “This isn’t my brother, ma’am,” Johnny tells her pointedly.

It’s perhaps cruel how much Mark enjoys watching the realisation dawn on the pretty receptionist’s face. _“Oh,”_ she says, blushing and flustered, and coughs into her hot-pink manicured hands. 

“Will that be all?” Mark asks politely, snuggling closer into Johnny’s side. Johnny isn’t his, but he is for now, and it’s lovely to pretend. He holds out his hand, palm up. “We’ve got things to get to in _our_ room.”

He’d be lying if he said the implication behind his words was unintentional. The receptionist blushes still further, practically shoving the room key into Mark’s outstretched hand. “That’ll be all, yes! Enjoy your stay.”

“We will,” Johnny says, grabbing Mark’s hand and pulling him away. They leave the receptionist still sputtering behind them, and Johnny watches Mark’s smile. “You enjoyed that, didn’t you, Mark Lee?”

“Perhaps.” He won’t deny it. 

“You’re cute.”

Mark quickly forgets about the receptionist altogether, because he’s _holding Johnny’s hand._ Yes, it’s very telling of his inexperience that such things fluster him so much, but sue him. Johnny is perfect. His fingers are infuriatingly big, and Mark wants them in his mouth immediately. He might well die if he tries to say that out loud right now, though, so just lets himself be pulled along all the way to their room.

Their room, where there’s _only one bed_ that Johnny may well fuck him in. Mark is so preoccupied with this when they reach it that Johnny has to call his name twice to get his attention before Mark realises he’s still holding their key. It’s nicer than the other rooms have been so far, not just because it’s a double this time. Mark rather suspects that Johnny has splurged on somewhere more expensive, and that’s why he’d hurried inside to pay before Mark could take a peek at the price. _You deserve more than a shitty motel room,_ Johnny had said, and has delivered in kind. Mark had just hoped for someone who wouldn’t kill him along the way, but he’s somehow ended up with a gentleman. 

“I should shower, huh?” Mark says, rubbing the back of his neck. He can feel heat all the way up to the tips of his ears.

“I’ll go first,” Johnny replies, “Unless you want me to be the one to take longer in there.”

The implication is clear. Johnny is so effortlessly sweet, and Mark appreciates the choice he’s being given. Still, he knows how he wants tonight to play out. He knows exactly what he wants from him. 

“I’m good to, uh, _take longer_ this time,” Mark promises him. 

“That’s what you want?” Johnny checks. _‘I’m good to’_ clearly isn’t enough for him and his bleeding heart. 

“It is.”

“Okay, baby.” Johnny steps closer and presses a kiss to his forehead. It should feel strange, but comes off as natural. Johnny kisses his cheek after that and then, chastely, his lips. Mark’s nerves settle, just a little. “Then that’s what you’ll get.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls leave me kudos and comments, my heart craves validation
> 
> \+ yes, next chapter is _The_ chapter. it's already written, and is essentially one 5k word sex scene, but i need to write ch5 before i let myself post it. i Do, however, post many spoilers on twt during the writing process if you wanna check those out.
> 
> [twt](https://twitter.com/scbaes)
> 
> [cc](https://curiouscat.qa/scbaes)
> 
> \- V xxx


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It’s almost like this means more to Johnny than it even does to Mark, the way he’s going about it._

Mark stares into his own wide eyes, reflected in the steamed-up mirror. There’s a handprint on it from where he’s wiped off the condensation. Just enough to reveal his face. His cheeks are flushed, both from the heat and for other, _less innocent,_ reasons. 

They’d just kind of thrown their sleep clothes at the bottom of their bed _(their_ bed) when getting ready for their showers. As Johnny is awful and hates wearing shirts, his had still been at the bottom of the bed when Mark had been grabbing his pyjama getup to scurry nervously off into the bathroom. And because Mark has perhaps the worst luck in the world when it comes to things like these, he had picked the wrong balled up black t-shirt to bring into the bathroom with him. Now faced with the option of _Johnny’s shirt_ or grossly wrapping himself back in the damp towel he’s just dried off with, Mark goes with the former. 

Pulling the t-shirt on, he learns that their size difference means Mark is _drowning_ in it. It slips down and shows his collarbones, and hangs down to the tops of his kiss-bruised thighs. Mark looks at himself in the full-length mirror, flushed from the shower, messy haired and fidgety. He has his sweatpants with him too, sure… But a smaller, bolder part of his brain wants to forgo the additional layers. He’s cute like this, he supposes. 

Maybe even fuckable.

_Johnny will be the judge of that._

* * *

It takes another five drawn out minutes for Mark to psych himself up to re-enter their room. Their room. _Their_ room. Mark really can’t get over that, it seems. Such a small detail, and yet so overwhelming.

Johnny is absentmindedly flicking through the assortment of random complimentary magazines that their room comes with when Mark finally reemerges. He’s just left his sweatpants in there, rather than coming out with them awkwardly bunched up in his nervous hands. It leaves him with nothing to hold on to, so he tugs at the bottom of the shirt, trying to pull it further down his thighs and succeeding only in exposing more of his collarbones. Oddly, this feels even more naked than when he’d come out in just a towel before. 

The magazines fall onto the floor beside the bed as Johnny looks up. A clattering of paper, somehow startlingly loud amongst the rushing blood in Mark’s ears. “I, uh,” he shuffles awkwardly on the spot, tugging uselessly at the hem of Johnny’s shirt, “I picked up the wrong one. Uh, my bad, dude?...” It trails off like a question. It feels safer like that. Less daring, like he isn’t spiralling into uncharted territory.

Behind Mark, the bathroom door swings shut with a _click_ as he leans back against it. Without quite registering it, he has backed up under the weight of Johnny’s stare. The door handle digs into the small of his back, but he feels frozen, incapable of taking a single step. Mark’s brain really doesn’t know how to process being wanted like this. He hopes that’s what this is. _Want._

“You’re gonna kill me, Mark Lee,” Johnny groans, voice raspy like he can’t quite breathe. Mark’s spine tingles, because _that is what this is, then._ Johnny wants him, then.

Mark laughs, pads of his fingers pressed to the plywood behind him, hands all splayed out and tense. He _sounds_ tense too, just like Johnny. The laughter comes out choked, a staccato little _ha ha ha._ “Thought you were gonna ‘tip the balance’, dude,” he dares to tease, and watches Johnny’s stomach tighten from across the room. “Was that all talk?”

Johnny swings his legs off the bed then, and Mark barely has time for _‘Oh, Fuck’_ to process in his turbulent mind before the older man is _there._ Right in front of him, in all his infuriatingly shirtless glory. One of those hands Mark can’t stop thinking about snakes up under the baggy t-shirt and grabs at his waist, pushing him even more against the bathroom door. Mark’s hands fly up to Johnny’s defined chest, and he lets them just rest there. He can feel Johnny’s heartbeat: thundering, just like his. 

“You sure you’re ready for that?” Johnny asks, sweet to the end. This is veering on the edge of saccharine, all the same. The very atmosphere wraps Mark up in its midst and makes him shiver. Johnny’s thigh pushes between his legs, electrifying. “You absolutely sure, Mark Lee?”

“Yeah,” Mark replies, certain. He lets his hands travel _up, up, up,_ lets his ams loop around Johnny’s neck. The hairs on his nape are soft, still slightly damp. With his free hand, Johnny mirrors him. They stare at each other for a long, heart-stopping moment before Mark speaks once more. _“Ab-so-lute-ly.”_

Mark isn’t expecting to get fully _picked up,_ but he won’t pretend he doesn’t enjoy it when he does. He bounces on the bed when Johnny practically throws him onto it, a newly-discovered strength kink sending him dizzy. His shirt _— Johnny’s shirt —_ has ridden up, thighs now on full display. Johnny doesn’t hesitate to move between them once more, refamiliarising himself with the way his big hands span Mark’s tiny waist. 

“Can I take these off, baby?” Johnny asks. Brain whiting out for a second at Johnny’s lips pressed to his sensitive inner thigh, Mark refocuses enough to see Johnny’s fingers hooked into the waistband of his briefs.

“Yes, yes,” Mark pants out all in a hurry, squirming when Johnny doesn’t get to it the second he’s given permission. “Johnny _c’mon,_ man, don’t be like that.”

“Like what, baby?” Johnny hums. He kisses Mark’s cock through the thin cotton, open mouthed and downright evil. Even crueller, Johnny runs his tongue across the entire length of him before continuing to speak. “You gotta be more specific.”

“Like you want me to _beg_ for it, dude,” Mark clarifies, though Johnny clearly knows exactly what he’d meant. His hips twitch under Johnny’s palms, desperate and futile, and he knows that if he tries bucking up deliberately he’ll only be held down. Mark won’t say he doesn’t like the thought of that. 

“But I _do_ want you to beg for it, Mark,” Johnny cocks his head to the side, looking at Mark like he’s being particularly obtuse, “I’d think that was obvious by now, baby, no?” 

It’s like that time Mark hadn’t known where Australia was on the map in fifth grade, and the teacher had called him out in front of everyone. Except this time, it’s a lot less _humiliating,_ and far more _frustrating._ Mark is burning up from it.

“If I- If I wasn’t so goddamn hard right now, I’d _so_ totally axe-murder you, man,” Mark complains. His head falls back in frustration, and he curses how petulant he sounds. Like he’s throwing a tantrum. Then, desperate for anything more and rapidly losing any remaining sense of pride, “C’mon, dude, please?”

Johnny _pulls,_ just a little, enough to make Mark even more uncomfortable with the waistband of his brief stretched directly over his cock, and then stops. When Mark whines loudly, still staring at the ceiling like it’s going to save him somehow, he feels the whole bed shake lightly as Johnny laughs at him. _Laughs._ Mark pretends his cock doesn’t throb from it. “Mark.”

_“What?”_ Mark spits out, somehow even more tantrum-esque than before. “I said please, man, what gives?”

Johnny tuts, and swats at his thigh. Mark leaks a wet patch into the fabric of his boxer-briefs. “Doesn’t count if you aren’t looking at me.”

_“Johnny,”_ Mark groans, eyes still fixed to the ceiling.

“Look at me, Mark.” Johnny sounds immovable. Sounds _hot._ God, Mark can’t take this.

He _means_ to tell Johnny that he’s insufferable, but when Mark sits back up and sees the way Johnny’s watching him, all that comes out is a weak little _‘you’_ that fast peters out and dies in his throat. Mouth dry, hands clutching uselessly at the mattress to ground himself, Mark looks at the lube on the bed next to Johnny and suddenly forgets anything other than the word _please._ It falls from his lips what feels like fifty turns per second, and only Johnny finally pulling off his underwear briefly quells his babbling. 

“I’m gonna need you to relax for me now, Mark,” Johnny warns, like he hasn’t just worked Mark up to the point of incoherency moments before. _Hypocrite._

“Yeah, that’s easy for _you_ to say, man.” 

“Touché.” At least he’ll admit it. “Can you grab a pillow from behind you for me, baby?”

“Do I get to hit you with it?” Mark asks, even though he’s already handing it over.

“Let’s save the homoerotic pillow fights for later, baby,” Johnny counters, “Up.”

Mark lifts his hips, letting himself be propped up. Easier for the taking. He almost asks Johnny if he’s allowed to lay down again for this part, but doesn’t want to deny himself the sight of those fingers finally going where he wants them most. Instead, Mark pulls the rest of the pillows directly behind him and leans against them. He’s fingered himself countless times before — hell, he’s even had his whole hand up there on a few adventurous, drawn out occasions — but having _someone else’s_ fingers there feels impossibly more charged. 

In the midst of a build-up that’s seemed to drag into eternity, the soft press of a slicked-up finger at his hole moments later seems remarkably instant. Mark jumps slightly, but forces himself to relax. It’s a foreign sensation, even though he’d stretched himself a bit in the shower already, but it isn’t an unpleasant one. Johnny has warmed the lube between his fingertips, so it isn’t even uncomfortably cold. Most times that Mark has had the chance to finger himself, he’s been too hurried and desperate to even wait long enough to do that. 

Unsurprisingly, given Johnny’s approach to everything else involving Mark, he doesn’t hurry at all. He moves his fingertip back and forth around his rim for a while, still gentle even as Mark complains, even as Mark reminds him none-too-subtly that he’s _already ready, Johnny, c’mon,_ even as Mark resorts to _begging_ once more. And when he finally thinks they’re getting somewhere, Johnny’s finger pushing into him with little resistance, his hopes are dashed when Johnny stops at the first knuckle.

“You’re _mean,_ man,” Mark groans, making eye contact with Johnny just to frown at him. 

“Just thorough,” Johnny counters, twisting and turning and testing Mark out with gentle movements. It’s unnecessary and frustrating, to say the least, even though Mark’s pretty sure this is less _teasing_ and more being overly careful.

“Well, can you _thorough-_ ly get your fingers in my ass already, dude?” Mark chokes out, with a roll of his eyes that he hopes is somehow attractive, “I’m kinda dying here.” 

“Smooth.” Johnny’s definitely making fun of his desperation, but Mark couldn’t care less right now. Because it’s _worked,_ and Johnny’s giving him more. Not all he wants, sure, but he’ll take what he’s given. In all the way now, Johnny’s middle finger reaches deeper than Mark’s ever could. Mark can feel the knuckles of Johnny’s ring and index fingers either side of it, bent and pressed against his rim. He wants them in him too, already. Wants _everything._

Mark tells him. He writhes and he whimpers and he tells Johnny that he’ll use his own damn fingers to get off if Johnny doesn’t hurry up. It’s about as believable as telling Johnny he isn’t a blushing virgin would be, yet it does the trick somehow. There’s the telltale _snap, click,_ and then another lube-coated finger is teasing at his hole. Mark can’t help but clench around the first in anticipation, but when he relaxes for the second it slips in easy as breathing, like he’s sucking Johnny in. 

“You’re gorgeous,” Johnny tells him, both completely serious and staggering enough a compliment to make Mark stop considering complaining altogether. He’s looking at Mark as if he’s some priceless work of art, rather than just a tangle of gangly limbs, legs spread and hole taking Johnny’s fingers like he’s made for it. 

It’s an obscene thing to think of, even without saying it out loud, and Mark almost closes his thighs as a sudden wave of shyness washes over him. But Johnny works his head between Mark’s knocking knees before he can, pressing a kiss to his flagging dick like he’s desperate for it. For _him._ It makes Mark’s thoughts buzz with static. 

“You _are,”_ Johnny reiterates, kissing all up Mark’s cock until he’s past half-hard once more. It doesn’t take much, not with Johnny’s fingers still fucking into him slow and steady. “Just a bit more, baby, okay?”

“... Okay.” It’s not like Mark has much hope of persuading him to speed up, anyway, given their track record in that regard. _Besides, is it really so bad to lay back and have Johnny treat him like he’s precious?_ Still, “You won’t break me, you know.”

“I know,” Johnny replies, and there it is. A third finger, _almost there._ The cocky smile returns, “I _could—_ but I won’t.”

At this point, Mark is beginning to wonder if Johnny majored in ‘Being Infuriatingly Hot 101’ rather than Music Production. It would certainly explain a lot about him. “You can, if you want to,” Mark tells him, guileless. “I wouldn’t mind at all.” 

The sight of Johnny’s eyes darkening in response to that evokes even better a feeling in Mark than the third finger finally stretching him open. Plush lips envelop his cock, both in petty retaliation to Mark’s blatant teasing and presumably to take the edge off. Three of Johnny’s fingers is more of a challenge than the equivalent from Mark, but it’s a necessary burn that ebs away soon enough into a faint tingling sort of ache. Johnny fucks them into him over and over — slow, premeditated thrusts that aren’t nearly enough. It’s like he’s deliberately avoiding Mark’s prostate. 

And he probably _is,_ now that Mark thinks about it, remembering how fast he’d come last night with Johnny’s mouth around him like it is right now. It’s embarrassing as hell, and that flush of shame only brings him closer. Desperate not to repeat himself so soon, he pulls Johnny up _hard_ by his hair, almost whiting out when doing so makes Johnny moan around his cock. Distantly, in the small part of Mark’s brain that isn’t currently a screaming void, he notes that weakness down for later.

“What is it, baby?” Johnny asks, voice all prettily fucked out. His hand doesn’t stop moving, and Mark absentmindedly rocks back against it, used to the stretch and itching for more.

The direct approach is best, Mark supposes. “Fuck me.”

Johnny looks him in the eyes, just like he’d done when Mark had been pressed against the door. _Burning._ He repeats his words, too. “You absolutely sure?” he asks. It’s gentler than before. Johnny’s hand stills inside Mark, and the loss of friction makes him keen. “You’re offering me a lot, here, baby. You sure you want to give it up?”

“Think the guy in the alley would ask me that?” Mark teases. Joking feels like the only way he knows to cope with this, with someone looking at him like he’s lovely enough to be cherished. Nobody has _ever_ looked at Mark like this, not once. 

“I’m no guy in an alley,” Johnny reminds him, “And I need you to tell me you’re sure.”

The frustration bleeding into Johnny’s tone makes Mark reconsider joking at all. It’s almost like this means more to Johnny than it even does to Mark, the way he’s going about it. _‘Taking Someone’s Virginity’_ seems like a huge deal to the other man. Perhaps Johnny has never done that before, though his own is clearly long, _long_ gone. Maybe whoever had been with Johnny first hadn’t cared enough to make it special. ‘Virginity’ as a societal construct is something Mark doesn’t read into a whole lot, but Johnny seems like more of a romantic than him. He definitely cares. 

“You’re so lovely, Johnny,” Mark tells him softly, pushing Johnny’s wrist until his fingers slip out. He pulls him into a kiss, half because he’s desperate to kiss Johnny again, half because he wants to see that pretty blush up close. Once more, Mark marvels that he’s able to affect Johnny at all, let alone to this extent. “I’m sure, man. I promise.”

“You absolutely promise?”

Deep, searching eyes. Mark falls into their depths, pulse quickening at their boundless intensity. Johnny’s cock is pressed up against him now. Somewhere amongst the kissing and the promising, he has shifted positions. He’s catching on Mark’s rim each time he moves even slightly, and Mark wants nothing more than to pull him right inside. 

Mark grabs onto Johnny’s hand, and guides his pointer finger over Mark’s chest in an X motion. For a fairly innocent action, it’s remarkably charged. “I _absolutely_ promise. Cross my heart.”

Slow breaths, in and out. _Shaking._ It’s the sound of someone on the brink. At last, Johnny’s patience falters. Spitting in his hand, he wraps it around Mark’s leaking dick to distract him. It works, in a way, but there’s no way Mark’s focus can be truly pulled from the feeling of Johnny finally pushing into him for the first time. Sure, it’s technically the feeling of _anyone_ pushing into him for the first time, but Johnny lends it far greater degrees of consequence. 

Even now, even while _this_ is happening at long last, Mark’s restless thoughts won’t still for one moment. It’s typical for him. 

He’s honing in on everything, all at once. Johnny’s blunt nails digging into his hips. Johnny’s hair falling into his eyes as he leans down to kiss Mark through it. _Johnny’s cock splitting Mark open, just the way he wants it._ “You’re perfect,” Mark murmurs against Johnny’s insistent lips. Johnny is too focused on Mark to refute him. “You’re so goddamn perfect, Johnny.”

It turns out that Johnny _does_ fit, after all. 

Fancy that.

Mark’s neck arches back as he adjusts to such an influx of _everything,_ groaning when Johnny takes the opportunity to distract him with the drag of teeth against his pulsepoint. Getting stuffed full of cock had certainly been a point on Mark’s ‘Running Away from Home’ checklist, but he really hadn’t expected to score that off en route. From the moment he’d first seen Johnny, though, Mark has been hoping to. He’s hoped for Johnny between his thighs, and is being given that and more.

“Please move, Johnny,” Mark begs him outright. It’s evident already that he has to, that Johnny won’t do one single thing without Mark’s begging for it as irrefutable consent. He dresses like textbook ‘Man Your Mother Would Worry About’, but Mark thinks Johnny’s picture in the Dictionary of Life is more fittingly placed as the definition for ‘Best Man to Lose Your Virginity To’, actually. Perhaps he’s biased. He has hardly lost his virginity before, after all. Regardless, Johnny is absolutely perfect to him. Absolutely perfect _in_ him. Mark needs more. _“Please.”_

Torturously slow, Johnny pulls out of him near-completely. Like his heart is being plucked from his chest, Mark feels the emptiness with some oddly keen sense of loss. Rationally, Mark _knows_ that a certain amount of push-and-pull is necessary for Johnny to fuck him. He understands it, he really does. But on a biological, nerve-deep level, Mark’s body feels like it’s being robbed of the loveliest feeling it has ever been treated to. He cries out, belatedly realises Johnny might misinterpret it as pain, and grabs his ass like a safeguard to stop him pulling out any further. Johnny looks down at him, bemused.

“Want you back in already,” Mark hastens to explain, still with a handful of Johnny’s kinda perfect ass in each hand. It’s hardly making his horny-addled thoughts any more coherent. His brain-to-mouth filter seems to have fled, too, because he keeps rambling without restraint, “Also, you have a really nice ass, man. Like, it’s _so_ nice to hold onto— can I keep on holding please?”

“How are you this cute, Mark Lee?” Johnny smiles, somehow combining fondness with his _I want to wreck you_ expression, and Mark takes that as a go-ahead for continued ass holding.

It’s great, because it means Mark can feel the muscles tensing as Johnny slides back against him, and _Oh Fuck,_ Johnny is in him again. Mark is going to pass away, he’s pretty sure, and his headstone is just going to read ‘Fucked Into an Early Grave’. A fitting middle-finger up to anyone from his old life that should happen upon his resting place. But _what_ a way to go— hands on a perfect ass as Johnny rocks against him, getting less gentle about it by the second.

“Does it always feel like this?” Mark asks him, breathless. Johnny has sped up to the point that the slide of skin on skin has escalated to very audible, very _messy_ slapping noises. It’s embarrassing, honestly. Mark can literally hear the sounds of him being fucked filling the room, and his poor gay brain doesn’t know how to cope with that. He knows, too, that this isn’t even the hardest Johnny could fuck him. He carries himself like someone still holding back.

Perhaps even worse is the way Johnny slows to reply. An almost vicious pace reduced to slow rocks and grinds against him that ruin him just as well. Mark can feel every inch in startling clarity, the slow slide of _Johnny inside him, Johnny is inside him._ He feels like one of those clay pots being moulded and shaped, his body adjusting itself to fit this new reality of being an extension of Johnny’s perfection. So wonderful and so somehow natural, like he’s always supposed to have been fucked like this. When it’s over, Mark knows he’ll feel like he’s missing a limb.

“Does it always feel like what, baby?” Johnny asks him. His hand slides into the dip of Mark’s waist, and Mark’s body can’t quite decide to squirm from ticklishness or melt into the sheets at the size of Johnny’s hand covering his side. Fingertips brush his spine, and it feels like heaven.

“Like-” Mark cuts off, because the sentence doesn’t seem intent on forming in any manner of coherency. Johnny’s hand makes its way to Mark’s cock now, startling little _oh, oh, oh_ sounds out of him with each flick of his wrist. It doesn’t make talking any easier, that’s for sure. “Like, like…”

_Like falling apart. Like combusting into nonexistence and resurging from the ashes left behind, over and over again in a pattern that shoots stars behind your eyelids. Like your blood has been replaced with fire. Like livewire, like you’re out of control and you don’t know how to cope with it, like you don’t know who you are outside of this suspension, but you can’t verbalise how exactly that makes you feel when you can barely remember your own name. Like—_

“No words?” Johnny says, seeming all too pleased to reduce Mark to a state of sex-blurred incoherency. Mark shakes his head a little in confirmation, and arches his back when Johnny speeds up again, just a little. A half-way point between drawn out and bruising. “You should write a song about it,” he offers up. It’s both cockiness and genuinity intertwined. “It always helps me when I can’t ‘vocalise’ things properly.” His speech is getting shakier too, now. Mark thinks he’ll hold out for a while, but he’s definitely closer. He’s good at hiding it, as well as holding back, so it’s subtler tells that give him away. 

“You want me to write a song about you fucking me silly, man?” Mark asks. His voice sounds insanely gone. 

“Yeah,” Johnny replies, “Maybe I do.”

Mark groans. Even with the pillow, there’s an ache spreading in his lower back. He wants to come soon, though he equally wants this to last forever. “You’re the worst.”

Then, another pause. Johnny blinks, careful and cautious and beautiful with it. “In a good way, though?”

“In the best way, man,” Mark reassures _“God,_ dude. You’re so good at this, you know that?” Johnny moans at his words, low and pretty. Mark takes that susceptibility to praise and runs with it, grasping on anything to make this better for him. “You fuck me so well, Johnny,” he says, feeling Johnny tense up, hearing him moan again like before. “Make me come? Please?”

“You’re gonna make _me_ come before _you_ if you aren’t careful, Mark Lee,” Johnny says, grip tightening around Mark’s cock just the same. His hands are just so _good,_ wherever he puts them. 

“Really?” Mark gasps. 

“No,” Johnny laughs, “but you’re cute for believing that.”

Mark could fall in love with him, if they were given longer than this snapshot in time. All in, the forever with a white picket fence kind. He doesn’t say it. “You’re perfect,” he says instead, “I need it, Johnny, _please.”_

For them, for _this,_ those words alone are enough. 

“So fucking pretty,” Johnny groans, leaning down to bite the arch of Mark’s neck. “Wish you could see how-” his voice cuts out, moaning as he goes deep again, “- how _good_ you look like this.” Johnny’s hand speeds up to match the pace of his hips, drinking up every plea that falls from Mark’s desperate mouth.

_Too much, too much._

Johnny sounds like he’s falling apart— with that as a backdrop, Mark is powerless to prevent his own destruction. It’s impossible to bear. Mark doesn’t want to hold back any longer. And so the livewire sparks, setting him alight. Mark combusts and resurges, relishes in his stolen happiness, and comes between their chests. 

His whole body is left tingling, brain teeming with wordless clouds of fog. Nonetheless, Mark still musters up the energy to whine loudly when Johnny pulls out of him. _“Want,”_ he tries to get across, but Johnny doesn’t seem to put much stock in this level of coherence, _“Johnny.”_

Grabby hands succeed, though, and he works Johnny’s cock with one of those big hands guiding him steady. He doesn’t quite have the strength to keep his fingers circled tight enough on his own, so he’s grateful for it. Though he quite wants Johnny in his mouth again, because Johnny had been _so_ lovely between his lips, Mark is just too exhausted. He hopes Johnny is close too, so that they can sleep. 

Looking up, it seems his prayers will be answered sooner rather than later. Johnny is flushed like he’s run a marathon, and he’s trembling like he's close to the finish line. _“Fuck,_ Mark Lee,” he moans when they make eye contact. Mark doesn’t know why. Maybe, just maybe, Johnny thinks he’s especially pretty like this, blinking up at him bleary-eyed and fucked-out. 

Remembering an earlier desire, Mark takes Johnny’s free hand in his, pulling it forward. All it takes for Johnny to come, it turns out, is the sight of Mark’s mouth stretched around his fingers, sucking on them like they’re tethering him to reality. _They are._ Cum splashes all over Mark’s stomach, mixing with his own. He lets go of Johnny’s spent cock to trace his fingers through it. “Pretty,” he remarks absentmindedly, devoid of a filter in the aftermath of being taken apart. 

Johnny takes Mark’s hand, and brings it to his lips. Without breaking eye contact, he laps their combined release from Mark’s slim fingers. “Pretty,” he agrees, dipping his tongue between Mark’s thumb and forefinger. He looks like something out of one of those porn magazines Mark used to stash under his mattress. It’s downright indecent.

Mark’s cock throbs at the sight. _Not now,_ he wills it, far too tired to consider. “Stop being hot,” he complains aloud, scrunching his face up in a none-too-convincing scowl, judging by the way Johnny _awws_ over it. “C’mon, man.”

“No can do,” Johnny beams down at him annoyingly. The moment is broken in a _way,_ sure, but Mark doesn’t want him any less. “Can’t turn off the sexy.”

“Pretty sure that sentence just turned it off on its own, actually,” Mark retorts. Johnny pouts, and Mark resiliently ignores how cute it is. He rolls his joints, hearing them click. “Can you get this off me before it dries, though, man?”

Dutifully, Johnny traipses off to the bathroom to fetch a washcloth. Mark stares at his ass all the way, figuring that he’s earned the right to, but still blushes when Johnny catches him. 

“What was that about me not being sexy, Mark Lee?” he asks, cocky smile plastered on his face.

It really isn’t Mark’s fault. How is he supposed to be presented with the sight of a fully naked Johnny walking around their bedroom and _not_ stare at him? “You’re incorrigible.”

“Alas, I’ll admit it,” Johnny flops down gracelessly onto the bed, and makes about cleaning the cum from Mark’s skin. Thankfully not with his mouth, this time— Mark wouldn’t survive it. The washcloth is warm, which comes as a welcome relief. Mark feels utterly pampered, despite Johnny’s teasing demeanour. “Can you blame me for being incorrigible when I’m around someone like you?”

“I can, and I will,” Mark replies, little weight to his words. He’s smiling too much to convince anyone, let alone Johnny. 

* * *

Later, Johnny asleep beside him with an arm slung around Mark’s waist, Mark wonders how Johnny has become a _‘let alone’_ already. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi again! hope you liked the update <3 plspls let me know in the comments what you thought of it? i rlly cannot stress how motivating it is to hear from ppl reading fic :')
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